Why does everyone expect us to charge in US Dollars?

March 27, 2012 By

Dollar and Euro signs - ©iStockphoto.com/ArsgeraAm I right in thinking that if you go on holiday to another country, you usually exchange some cash into the local currency and pay with that?

Or do you go into a shop in say, Madrid, and ask what something costs in a Dollars?

Certainly you would not try to actually pay in Dollars, would you?

Admittedly there are some exceptions, such as the fast food outlets in Germany near U.S. airforce bases, that really do accept dollars and display the exchange rate on the tills.

But generally speaking, if you are in the U.S. you pay in dollars, in most of Europe you pay in Euro, and in the United Kingdom you pay in Pounds sterling.

So you would think that the same would be true in the on-line world as well, wouldn’t you? [Read more…]

Filed Under: European Blogger, Payments Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pesetas – vergangen aber nicht vergessen

January 6, 2010 By 2 Comments

Der Euro ist nun rund 7 Jahre da, aber es scheint dass manche Läden auf Lanzarote die Peseten nicht aufgegeben haben. Einige stellen weiterhin Schilder auf, dass die alte Währung noch akzeptiert wird.

Ein Buchladen in Arrecife weist sogar den Preis auf dem Kassenbon in beiden Währungen aus:

Receipt in Pesetas

Kennen Sie noch andere Beispiele?

Filed Under: Arrecife, Einkaufen, Lanzarote Tagged With: , ,

Teuro

August 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

“Teuro” was selected by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache as the “Wort des Jahres” (Word of the Year) in 2002.

Teuro is a so-called “Portmanteau” and is made up of the words “teuer” (expensive) and “Euro”.

It refers to the feeling that people have in Germany that things became more expensive after the Euro was introduced at the beginning of 2002.

Part of the problem is caused by people dividing by 2, whereas the exact exchange rate was 1.95583.  But in many areas – eating out being one of the most common examples – the prices were noticed to have gone up considerably.  It is often commented, that the prices were almost the same figures in Euro as in DM – just with a different currency sign.

Another factor is that price rises since 2002 go much faster, as increasing a price by 1EUR is a lot more than increasing by 1DM.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Filed Under: German Words Explained, Podcasts Tagged With: , , , , ,

Please click on ACCEPT to give us permission to set cookies [more information]

This website uses cookies to give you the best browsing experience possible. Cookies are small text files that are stored by the web browser on your computer. Most of the cookies that we use are so-called “Session cookies”. These are automatically deleted after your visit. The cookies do not damage your computer system or contain viruses. Please read our privacy information page for more details or to revoke permission.

Close