All about the benjamins

When I paid for lunch today, the cashier handed me back what she thought was three euros and 50 cents. One of the great things about France (and the rest of the Eurozone, for that matter), is that they have coins as high as two euros, which means that you don't have to worry about having tons of small bills crowding your wallet. Instead you get to worry about ripping out the lining of your pockets from lugging around the mound of loose change you accumulate by the end of any given day, but a limp and a bruised thigh is a small price to pay for a wallet that folds properly.

When I looked down at the change the cashier gave me, I noticed that the two-euro coin looked a bit strange. This isn't so surprising, since each country in the Eurozone gets to mint its own coins, so the stamp on a French euro is wildly different from that on a Spanish euro, for example. It took me a moment to understand why I didn't recognize this stamp, but I quickly realized that it was because I was looking at a two-pound coin instead of a two-euro coin. I don't mean a two-pound coin in the sense that it was a foot in diameter and weighed as much as my 12-year old cat; I mean the English currency loved the world over for its endearing portraits of the royal family.

Holding this British coin in my hand got me to thinking about exchange rates, which is a hot topic of conversation in the Alexanderpool household given that my salary is denominated in dollars but converted to euros. The fun thing about exchange rates and converting dollars to euros is that it magically makes my paycheck seem a lot less impressive than it would have been if we were still in the US. Thinking about how much things cost here in dollars will drive you crazy if you let it, especially when you start to realize that the 1 euro loaf of bread you just bought cost you $1.27, or that the 10 euro cab ride you took home really came out to $12.70. Of course, if we were living in London, where the pound is even stronger than the euro, converting money would reduce our real take-home pay even more. That's just one of the many reasons that we're glad we live in Paris and not in the UK (others include better food, closer distance to family and friends, and a respect for dental care and hygiene).

So I'm looking at Elizabeth II's profile and debating whether to tell the cashier that she gave me a two-pound coin (which is worth about three euros) instead of a two-euro coin, all the while thinking about the fall of the dollar and the waning purchasing power of the American consumer. Whatever happened to the good old days when the dollar was the strongest currency around? When you could exchange a dollar for over six French francs and feel really loaded because the smallest bill in your wallet had "50" printed on it?

I'm not complaining about my salary, which I think is great, but man do I wish that it were in euros right about now. With American imports on the rise and the Republicans spending like it's going out of style (which it hopefully is), there's little chance that the dollar will regain its purchasing power over the euro anytime soon. The dollar is on its way out, and we ex-pats paid in dollars are left holding the shrinking moneybag, pondering our limited alternatives. It's part of the price we pay to live in Europe, I guess. It's worth it, but it sure is a bitter pill to swallow.

I kept the two-pound coin; we need all the help we can get.