Who say one does not need math in real life? Wrong....
Travel math can be rather stressful. As one travels from country to country, the currency changes. Each time one needs to exchange the dollars to the new currency, one must be careful not to exchange too much because the next country might not want this country's currency.
Anyway, here is how it went. I left US with a bunch of dollars and some euros. I figured it will be a good start, and I immediately memorized the exchange rate US $1.00 is equal to .0699 Euros which means if something costs 1 Euro it will be $1.43. That is fine - I will remember that.
However, during this travel, in addition to dollars and euros I had to deal with: Russian Rubles; Ukrainian Hryvnia; Hungarian Forint and Serbian Dinars, each with a different exchange rate and different name that I needed to learn. There were some interesting experiences along the way.
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| US Dollars |
The first leg of the trip was
Moscow and I had to deal with Rubles. Right at the airport I bought some Rubles and the exchange rate was $1.00= 28.2 RUB, so I walked away with several thousand rubles.
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| Russian ruble |
The word "thousands" in money terms makes me uncomfortable. It was really obvious when I had to pay at the hotel the 9,000.00 Rub for 3 days! What??? I started worrying whether I will have enough money for the next 28 days. Once I calmed myself down I figured that it was just over $100.00/night, and in Moscow, a very expensive city anyway, I can live with it. So, I settled down and started figuring prices in rubles.
At this point one will wonder why didn't we use credit cards. Ha! Good question: a)Many hotels, train stations, restaurants and grocery stores take only cash, and, b) there is $2 to $5 additional charge every time one uses a credit card.
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| Ukraine hryvnia |
Our next country was
Ukraine. Rubles are no good here. So again, off we go to get some Ukraine money called what? Pronounced how? Hryvnia! The exchange rate is $1=8.088 UAH. Now that is much better rate than the rubles, but now I have to learn some more counting. Here the hotels took only cash in their own currency. The train tickets had to be purchased with cash, too.
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| Hungarian forint |
Next country -
Hungary. This will be easy, I thought, I speak Hungarian and I know the name of the currency - Forint. Exchange rate $1 = 188.9 Huf. Wow! Now I am literally walking around with tens of thousands forints, like 75,000.00! Than I go to the hotel to pay, and the story is the same: "We do not take credit cards, nor dollars, but euros and Forints will do" So I give them thousand and thousands of foritns for four day stay, and I find out the price for the hotel is much higher in their own currency than it would have been in euros. I still walk around with thousands of forints hoping no one will rob me. I buy an ice cream cone and spend 200 Huf. Good! Five more and a whole thousand will be gone! I still have a few thousands forints at home.
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| Euro |
This is the mighty Euro, coveted by Hungary, and other European countries hoping to join the European union. Now I have to learn and practice the exchange rate between euro, dollar and forint. At this point I could use a calculator.
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| Serbian Dinars |
After four days in Hungary, the next country I visited was
Serbia. Here, I had to deal with Dinars. The exchange rate is $1 = 71.323 Dinars. Again, I am walking around with thousands of dinars, but this time people are willing to deal with dollars and euros, too, so my calculations got even more complicated. Often, the big ticket items are listed in euros like appliances, cars or houses. I guess it is to avoid having to list the prices in millions.
Now, I am back home with an assortment of foreign currencies: euros, rubles, hryvnia, forint, dinar, lats (Latvian currency from a previous trip), kuna (Croatian currency from a previous trip), and Canadian dollars (from the fact that we are only a couple hours drive from Canada).
I will keep them all together in a jar and hope they all get along.
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