Money

Hello hello! I just thought I'd stop by with another wonderful update. Recently for me it's been a lot of soccer, school, and socialization. I'm training with FSC Rheda, the local team here. The training in Germany is a little bit different and a little bit more strenuous than it is in America. I didn't have a huge soccer vocabulary when I got here but it's all coming along. At the very least I get to play good soccer with cool kids three times a week.

I was talking with one of the kids from the team about the money here, and he was telling me how hard it was when the Euro, the currency for 13 of the 27 countries in the European Union, was first introduced in 2002. Apparently you could exchange two Deutschmark for a Euro, but the prices stayed about the same. It was really hard on lots of people in the area.

Now the Euro a very strong currency, which is bad for exchange students like me. The going rate is 1 Euro to 1.36 US dollars. It's deceiving when you see a price somewhere and think it's a great deal, until you do a little bit of mental math. On top of that, Euro bills look like Monolopy money and Euro coins are really valuable, both of which I'm not used to. I think this makes me subconsciously undervalue money here. I've got to be careful...


That one little coin is worth just as much as the whole stack of coins back home.


That Monopoly money there is worth more than you think...

The only good news with money is that it's really easy to withdraw money here through Bank of America. With an account there I can withdraw Euros at any Deutsche Bank without fees. It also works with various banks in France, the UK, Mexico, Canada, etc. Really cool.

I could use a little bit of help with this last thing. I want to teach my English class some cool and funny slang phrases and words in English. I want to at least teach them some things they won't find in a textbook or a newspaper. Any ideas? School appropriate, please. Leave me a comment as soon as you've got an idea!