Sorry it’s been awhile. I’ve been preoccupied. I’ll try to post more often to make up for the lost time. Starting January 1 of this year, Slovakia changed currencies from the Slovak crown, to the Euro. This was a change that I was very happy about. For starters, this made the numbers much lower on all items in the store. There was something that bothered me psychologically about paying 100 crowns for an item at the grocery store, even though it was about the equivalent of $5. Secondly, it’s easier for me to think between dollars and euros than dollars and crowns. Finally, the euro is colorful and comes in different sizes. It’s much more attractive than the plain Jane green of the dollar and the amount of the euros is represented by both the number in print and the actual size of the banknote and coin. However, there is one negative side to it for me. The euro has 1 and 2 euro coins. This means that people are constantly walking around with a lot of change in their pockets. I don’t like carrying around change but now I have to be more careful about it or I will lose a lot of money.
All stores and shops had to start listing their items first in the Slovak crown, and 
then in euros underneath last year. This was basically to get people used to the prices. The banks had also set the exchange rate at 30.126 crowns per euro permanently. Since people are still not completely used to the euro, stores must now list the prices in euros first, and crowns underneath. All countries that have the euro also get to feature 3 unique coins to their countries. Slovakia’s features Bratislava castle, the Slovak cross, and Mt. Krivan on their coins.
For Slovaks who travel to Austria often, the euro is very convenient. They no longer have to exchange money to go to shopping malls or outlets, or even to pay for parking at the airport in Vienna. For me it will also be good when I travel back to the States because I will get more dollars for my euros. Overall the transition seems to have gone smoothly and it is better for the country.
10 comments:
In Turkey, there are one lira coins, so I also had to get used to using change. It was annoying, but I got used to it. It wasn't so bad, because there were no 1 kuruş pieces (a kuruş is 1/100 of a lira) and most prices were exact, like 6 L, not 6.37, or even 6.35.
oh yeah? when did you go to turkey? The slovak crown had another division call the helier. They only made 50 helier pieces. It was quite dumb actually and a lot of stores would give you the price 102 crowns and 37 heliers, which was impossible to pay so they just rounded it up to the nearest crown.
I went to Turkey over this winter break. Are there 100 helier to a crown?
yeah it's 100 heliers to a crown. I actually made a mistake. I meant to say if it was 57 heliers it was rounded up.
A guy at UMBC bought a frisbee from our team with some Euros once.
Sean, you should post more often!
yeah I know I should write more but I'm just not in the writing mood. I'm not sure how many people actually read it anyway. I'll try to write something else soon ok?
I find these articles fascinating.
thanks man
Seanieman - Congrats on your marriage to Aoife.
Sorry, I think I have the wrong SeanieMan. The one I know is from Cork. Plus, your pic is not the guy I know. I should have checked that first before posting.
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