No, this post has nothing to with religious or governmental change in Egypt. This has everything to do with currency and making change with money. Whether you go to a street vendor or a department store in the mall, no one seems to be able to make change. Where are all of the small denominations of money??!!
There is an acceptance here that if the total is 19 LE, you might actually just end up paying 18 LE (roughly $1). Maybe the bill is 12.50 LE. You may actually pay an extra .50 LE, or the establishment might swallow the .50 LE. I know, in the grand scheme of things, this is very minimal. The problem really comes into play when you order things to be delivered.
When Zach and I order things to be delivered, we usually order extra just to round it up to the nearest big denomination. If a food bill comes out to be 164 LE ($10), we will usually order more to make it closer to 200 LE so we don't have to mess with asking the delivery guy for change. And, yes, I say delivery guy because I have never had a delivery woman.
So, here's an anecdote about making change that happened to me three days ago:
After school, I went into a pharmacy about one block from our apartment. I bought lotion (which turned out to be body wash) and a nail file. The total came to 87 LE. I gave the guy a 100 LE bill. So, if we all do our math, I should get back 13 LE. He gave me a 10 and... a granola bar because he didn't have small change. Haha!
It's that time of year again. Spring break!!!! This year, we went to Munich, Germany with a friend. Another friend and her daughter joined us later in the week for a couple of days.
When I go on vacation, I am the type of person who likes to see and do everything there is to do in a city/area. Zach, on the other hand, hates my type of vacation. He would rather sit in a coffee shop or bar the whole day and people-watch or chat. This vacation, I tried to have a mix of both. We were in Munich for seven nights. I feel that we had a good combination of sightseeing and relaxing.
This is the first time we used Airbnb, and I was pleasantly impressed with our apartment. It was about a 15-20 minute walk to Marienplatz, Munich's main square.
We arrived in the early afternoon on Friday. One of the very first things the three of us did was find a bar to eat pork and drink a beer. I did't really miss pork until I ate it.
On the second day, we decided to take a Sandemans Free Walking Tour. If you are traveling in Europe, check out this company to see if they give tours in your area. We learned a lot about Munich in the 3-hour walking tour. For example, look at the picture below. We learned that lions represent something important in Munich (much like everywhere else in Europe). The lion in the picture has his mouth closed. That is because he is facing a church. The lion that is mirrored on the other side has his mouth open. He is facing where people used to make laws. We were told that it's this way because you should not speak out against the Catholic church, but it is more than okay to speak out against lawmakers. I thought that was just pretty interesting!
This next picture also has some importance. It has something to do with a baby who will one day be king and his pet monkey. The monkey carried the child up the tower, and it only came down when it smelled bananas. However, it wasn't bananas at all; it was beer (or something to do with the making of beer). Munich sure does have a strong beer identity!
The next day, we took another Sandemans Tour of Neuschwanstein Castle, which is also known as the Disney Castle. We learned a lot of history about it, but I'll just let you look at the pictures. We did tour the inside, but weren't able to take pictures.
One of the days, we all just got our haircut. It was the coldest day we were there, and while we were in the salon, it started to hail and snow. I'm really glad we weren't outside walking in it. By the time we all finished, about 2 1/2 hours later, it was clear outside.
Even though it was pretty cold, I really wanted to take a walk through the Englischer Garten. From what I've read, it's even bigger than Central Park. It also houses the 2nd largest beer garden in Munich. Unfortunately, we didn't stay and have a beer, because it was just too cold outside. I think everyone else agreed with us because there were only about 15 people sitting outside. Another reason I wanted to check out the Englischer Garten was because of the Eisbach. The Eisbach is an artificial river where surfers are able to "catch a wave".
Though we drank a lot of beer the whole trip, we didn't go on beer tour until the last night we were in Munich. Yes, we took another Sandemans tour. We were able to taste some beer and visit the beer halls. We also made some new friends. What a great ending to a great trip!
