Financial Considerations

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 (Part 1):

One of the real advantages experienced during this trip was that the US dollar was strong in value compared to the Euro and other European currencies. We dealt with three different currencies during our travels: (i) the Danish kroner in Denmark, (ii) the Czech crown in Prague, and (iii) the Euro in Vienna. In Prague, in particular, it was difficult (for me, anyway) to really keep track of how much things cost. The Czech crown is a high denomination currency. I think the exchange rate was something like 20 Czech crowns to a single US dollar. So 100 crowns was equal to $5. And so the numbers get really high really fast. It'

s not uncommon to be carrying 1000-crown and 2000-crown bills. On top of the great exchange rate, everything in Prague was just plain cheap.

What was most hard to adjust to, however, was that the great majority of merchants only take cash. As a result, o

n the second day in the city, we ran into an unexpected problem. We were enjoying a lovely lunch at a restaurant by the river's edge, when the waiter brought our check. I pulled out a credit card, and he advised us that they only took cash. Katherine and I looked at each other. We didn't have that much cash on us. So we started scrounging through our purses.

We did come up with the cash that we needed, but that left us with very little, and I'd left my ATM card back at the hotel (about a mile away). We had enough money left to get into one more site on our list, but then we had to pass on a couple other places we had planned to see that afternoon because we simple had no more money! We had no choice but to head back to the hotel. Needless to say, once I was in possession of my ATM card, we made a bee-line for an ATM. From that point forward, we made sure we always had plenty of cash on hand.