Daily Archives: September 28, 2014

On the ship –beautiful, vast, elegant. Good weather.  Love to all.
Joyce

Now is a good time to exchange dollars for euros, apparently, and it will get even better.  Last year we paid about $1.80 for every euro; this year the rate fell to $1.27 on Friday, and this morning it’s $1.268.  Some banks are predicting parity, something we haven’t seen in quite a few years.  On Saturday we got a pretty good rate from a money-changer in downtown Miami – $1.28 – with no extra fees.  The place is seriously scuffed up and seedy, but we escaped with our lives and a bundle of euros at at a rate we liked.

I didn’t notice until yesterday:  In addition to being slightly different sizes, each euro denomination is a different color.  Sally pointed this out to me in the back seat as Bonell’s truck careened homeward.  The 5-euro note is grey, the 10 is red, the 20 is blue, the 50 is orange, the 100 is green, the 200 is yellow and the 500 is purple (not that we have a lot of those).  Also, there is a different architectural period illustrated on the back of each denomination.  The 10-euro note pictures the Romanesque period, the 20-euro represents the Gothic era, the 50 pictures Renaissance architecture, and the 100-euro represents Baroque and Roccoco architecture.  It’s pretty money.

There is no 1-euro bill.