My 2c on Currency Swaps
The beauty of the internet is that I can be anywhere and you can’t tell. I’m in Montreal now and you’d never have guessed. You can’t even see that I’m wearing a giant moose hat right now. Okay, I’m not… Anyway, Montreal is very pretty. It’s my first time in Canada and one day I’m definitely coming back to see much more.
I’m big on travel and am much savvier now than I was when I first started seeing the world 10 years ago. I don’t pack a million things, for one, and try not to fall for tourist scams.
What does irk me though is how completely and utterly ripped off you get when you exchange money. It’s worst at the airport (often a laughable exchange rate plus an additional fee) but it’s bad pretty much at any Bureau De Change. And if I use my New Zealand money card at ATMs overseas I get ‘currency coversion’ fees, something mysterious called a ‘convenience fee’ and a ‘just because we feel like it’ fee.
Why can’t we all just use Linden dollars, like in Second Life?
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Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
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Here in Europe most countries got rid of this problem to a certain extent by adopting the Euro as official currency back in 2002. I still have the same problem everytime I go back to the UK.
Where as a common currency is useful for travelling within europe, it does take away some of the romanticism of travelling like.
Filling your wallet with funny bank notes that you don’t know how to value.
Filling your pockets with useless coins that you decide to keep incase you return. (Of course when you return you’ve lost them and get another collection.)
Getting your maths wrong and thinking you’ve done a good deal when you’ve just been ripped off.
June 4th, 2007 at 2:32 amYeah, it was fun seeing all the different currencies in Europe pre-Euro. Your third point about getting the math wrong is so me. I’m not that bad at math but am not great at quick calculations, working out the bill plus tax plus tip etc, and always give away too much for fear of being stingy.
June 4th, 2007 at 8:02 am