Calamari

OK Marilyn. You are making me say this. You know that the seat I want on my next flight will be the toliet seat in first class. Any way they could pop a window in there for me? I am happy to pass on the food completely. But I would like to be able to brush my teeth as often as I like.

StCirq

Marilyn: I think your example is EXACTLY what's going on here, which is why I characterized the poster as "incredibly naive," not stupid. I guess we all have to go back to our first European experience and remember how "translating" prices was one of the big obstacles.

SoCal3

Hi Janetele! We were in Italy one year ago
and I think we saw only one place that actually were accepting lira. The Euro is
used everywhere, even in the small towns,
in fact, they prefer it. Didn't have much
trouble with it. Pretty easy to figure out. I can't believe how rude people are on this forum. We should all be trying to
help each other. After all, we are all
travelers and always could use the best
advice. Have a wonderful time, wish we
were going back soon.
Ciao!
SoCal3

Marilyn

Calamari, notice how I cleverly did not say it, thus forcing you to? After checking out the toilets on my recent flight, I decided it would be too claustrophobic without a window, although I suppose you could leave the door open when you wanted company.

I don't think most of the posts on this thread were rude. It's hard to read someone's tone of voice in print -- that's why we're reduced to those ridiculous faces. I always hated them, but find myself using them to convey the proper tone.

And this forum ain't for the thin-skinned, that's for sure!

nocinonut

What is the matter with you all, and Patrick I am surprised at how some of your posts lately are approaching rude.

If I walked around my company tomorrow and asked people there about lira vs. euro, I would be that half of them would not know which countries accept what type of money. It is the simply not in their interests and even if they are going to a country in a week, they might have put off figuring it out.

It may be surprising but travel knowledge to some people is not high on their list.

nocinonut

And please don't jump all over me regarding my syntax either!

I was just thinking that to some people travel is incidental.

Marilyn

Yeah, nocinonut, but the people in your company aren't going to Italy next week. If you asked 100 people who were going to Italy next week, I bet most of them would know that the currency is the Euro.

I think this is not so much a matter of travel issues as of keeping up with what's going on in the world in general. After all, the conversion to the Euro was a pretty big story for quite a long time.

janetele, I hope you have a wonderful trip! Please don't be offended. You did ask kind of a dumb question, but we've all asked dumb questions before, and will do so again.

BTilke

In defense of Janetele, I have to say that even here in Europe, some people haven't mentally made the jump to "euros only" after two years. So many places I go into still have prices quoted in Belgian francs as well as euros. In real estate, especially, many Belgians are still thinking in terms of francs, not euros. I would not be surprised if Janetele still sees some prices marked in lira as well as in euros. And given all the price hikes that suddenly happened when Europe switched over, there are probably a lot of Italians secretly wondering if they, too, would do better with liras...;-)
Anyway, Janetele, it's euros only. On the plus side, Italy has nice Euro coins, with pretty designs on them. Belgium's coins are the most boring, just the same not-handsome king's face on each one. (The coins minted in each euroszone country are valid across the whole eurozone, but each country was able to do their own design. The paper money is standardized though--no difference in design no matter where the money is printed.)

i_am_kane

In my opinion, janetele and some of the repliers share the blame for this pathetic post. First, janetele should have put more effort into her trip and done her homework. The people on this forum aren't paid to help anyone, it is done out of generosity of their time and knowledge. However, some of the replies were caustic and elitist.

I hope everyone learned something from this discussion.

Patrick

Wow, what a lot of controversy! I am again sorry if my response seemed rude. I merely said I was curious what her understanding was of how currency worked. I can somehow accept (barely) the idea that someone still didn't know that euro had replaced the lira totally, but I can't understand having such a total lack of comprehension of how foreign exchange works that a person could think that if both currencies were still in use, that one would be better than the other. That maybe since you got more liras to the dollar that that would be a better option. How could someone not understand that even if both currencies were in existance, that the end cost would still be the same number of dollars?

And did I call her dumb or stupid? No. I used the expression, "I'm curious. . ." then tried carefully to question the reasoning behind the query. If that's RUDE, I guess I'm really the dumb one, but I can't figure out how else I could have brought up this point any more politely. Sometimes I think that people here are getting on the "that's rude" bandwagon if anyone dares to try to explain anything or questions a rather unusual or different itinerary or thought.

dln

And I hope that now janetele knows that only the euro is used, she will get herself to the bank pronto to get some! Our bank said it would take two days to get them for us, but someone misplaced the order and it ended up taking nearly six days. A bad thing to happen to janetele if she's going next week...

ira

Hi all,

On my recent trip to Italy I noticed that in nearly all transactions in which I was given a machine-printed receipt that the price was printed in both Euros and Lire. This indicates to me that Italians don't really understand the Euro and could have been the source of Janetele's confusion.

flanneruk

Patrick:

I thought you were right to be tetchy. On reflection though, I think it's you who's got his economics wrong. Multiple currencies aren't rare (think FEC's in China, DM in much of Eastern Europe in the early 90's, cigarettes in Germany in the late 40's). They're not even unknown in stable, mature countries (look at a lot of southern Canada). And sometimes, people have a preference for one of them that isn't directly linked to that currency's performance on the forex markets. You really could get things cheaper with DMs than with lei or crowns or whatever.

And stories about what you could get for a DM were even more colourful than the reality.

Now the reasons for that don't apply in Italy. But it's not obvious to someone not obsessed with travel that they don't. Any more than it's obvious how to change planes in a European airport, or how to use trains.

As ever, what's obvious to some of us isn't obvious to everyone. Sometimes, they're right.

carniecosmo

Hasn't anyone ever gotten hell for asking a stupid question at the family dinner table, particularly around large, holiday gatherings, or was this just a dysfunction in my family? I don't think of this board as any indicator of how people "really" behave towards one another. That's silly. If anything, anonymous writers are permitted to be as politically incorrect and as caustic and elitist as they wish. Sounds like healthy debate and discourse if you ask me. Where else can I find terrific travel tips, written with such personality, wit, and hard-ass opinion? People make the world go round and the world is not black and white or altruistic, except here, of course.

Even if I was 90 and had never travelled before, I tend to think that I would have the money thing sorted out a week before my departure. Folks, I think the joke is on all of you.

carnie

carniecosmo

"If anything, anonymous writers are permitted to be as politically incorrect and as caustic and elitist as they wish."

I forgot to stress that's part of the fun!

Scarlett

I agree that a novice traveler would get a few things confused when planning a trip and the currency has to be one of the most common problems faced by all travelers. Forget about "Do I have enough?"! Just remembering which kind and how much it is worth makes my lil ole head spin! That is why it is fun traveling with the Yankee, I just buy something and he pays for it.
But back to the real problem here, for me.
Janetele! How can you be leaving next week for Italy and not know this yet?? The minute we start thinking about a trip, I am reading books, getting brochures, making plans and reading everything on the internet!
If one is a novice traveler, My first bit of advice would be to Plan Ahead! The more you know before you get there, the less dumb mistakes you will make that could effect the way you enjoy your trip!
So go do your homework and Please, write us a long juicy trip report when you get back!!

CalgirlSusan

It seems to me the rude one here was janetele. She asked a question. Three people answered. One person was a little abrupt but prompty apologized for the tone, still answering the question. Another gave more details and tried to explain the way it works. A third added even more information about currency. Then the poster came back and rather than thank these people for their comments, rakes them over the coals saying she guesses they don't want to help and says she will be kinder than they were. Now that's rude.

rex

The forum is the loser here for this thread. For every "janetele" who posts a question revealing her total lack of experience, there are probably 10 other new visitors reading and contemplating whether and how to ask a question.

If they read this little tornado, how many if them will think "forget it! I am not going to risk asking a question on THIS place!"

After all, don't we all fear, at least a little bit, not knowing what we don't know we don't know!?

I have posted answers like Sheila's before - - more than once - - and I regret it. Anyone can make a mistake, and an apology only helps partially.

Better ways to handle a question like this will be to leave it for the person who feels like taking ten minutes or so, composing the "Dear Naive Jane" reply, in a sympathetic and teaching manner.

Best wishes,

Rex

NYCFoodSnob

My 67-year-old aunt is a dimwit. I love her dearly and I'm one of the few in my family who has any patience with her. She barely had a high school education and after 26 years of marriage, her husband dumped her to live a youngster's life. I'm sure most of you know her well...she's been aptly described in the thread "Things that make you go hmmm..." My aunt is well known in our family (and beyond) for passing on her one and only opportunity to visit the Louvre because she took a laxative the night before our scheduled visit.

Her favorite pastime is watching TV and gossiping with friends. She dislikes driving, doesn't travel and refuses to pay for long-distance telephone service. She doesn't know how to type and she's scared of computers. She's never touched one. Btw, her only daughter is married to a successful millionaire businessman.

In 1994, I took her and my mother to Paris. This was my aunt's first trip abroad. She went to my mother to ask about money and she never could figure it out on her own. The cash to travelers checks to Francs was too confusing for her. When in Paris, she simply put some Francs in her hand and let the salesperson do the math. I enjoyed the watching the scene.

What's the point? Any person capable of surfing the web and registering for fodors is capable of finding out foreign currency information quite easily. A true (innocent) dimwit wouldn't be here asking this stupid question. I reiterate, this post is joke and all of you who took it seriously have been had.

Jocelyn_P

Come on, guys, didn't your Moms teach you that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all? And by the way, traveling in Austria 5 years ago I found that I could use three different currencies: DM, schillings, or american dollars.