Note to self

[andrewducker]

When doing something for the first time (like getting foreign money) ask for people's advice on DW/LJ _first_, not after you do it.

I suspect my problem here was that I was expecting there to be horrible charges, and awful exchange rates, if I just took out Euros while I was in Tenerife. I take it I'm still living in the second millenium?

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Funny thing happened to me last week.

Actually, it wasn't funny at all, but it pertains perfectly to your advice.

Normally in foreign countries, I would pay for everything with plastic and get out whatever cash I need from a cashpoint when I arrive.

So there's me, last Monday and 10.17pm arriving at Paris Gare du Nord on the Eurostar from London. And just as the train pulls into the station I get a nose bleed*. I grab my bags and dash from the platform into the station. My handkerchief is struggling to contain the flow and I am dripping blood all over Paris. What I need is a public lavatory.

Except that to get into the public lavatories at Gare du Nord, you need 70 Euro cents in coins. Which of course I don't have.




* This is not normal. I don't snort coke and I haven't had a nosebleed since I was 13. Maybe it was the tunnel. I had another one the following morning which was worrying enough (after all, blood is coming from my head without an explanation) that I got my French colleague to book me an appointment with a GP. His English was worse than my French, but I think there was nothing to worry about.