My Life in Euros

There’s a big deal made about exchange rates all the time, and rightfully so. The Euro to American Dollar rate is 1.44 right now, which is much better than it was a year ago, but is by no means good. So just by flying from Newark to Rome, My bank account was basically cut by 30 percent.

It only took me about 3 days to get used to using the Euro. By that I mean getting used to the frequent use of coins. The European Union has perfected the use of the euro and 2 euro coins, something that the United States tried to do a few years back with the dollar coin, but failed miserably. The easiest, most convenient and effective way to pay for anything under 5 euros is using coins, which brings me to my next point.

The Euro is cheaper to live on. We’ll disregard the currency exchange rates for now and take the euro for a euro. A sandwich at a local caffe is on average 2-3 euro. A cone of gelato is no more than 2 euro on average. A slice of pizza, priced by the kilogram, 2-3 euro (we’re talking a good slice, maybe even 2 by American standards). A nice sit down meal with homemade pastas, 10 euro. So why is it that the same sandwich would cost me 6 or 7 dollars in the US? Why is an ice cream cone 4 dollars? And above all, how is it that the ingredients are fresher and better yet I’m paying less?

If someone has an answer, leave it in the comments below, because I’d really like to hear.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has commented and left some awesome messages. It makes writing this every day a lot more fun knowing people are reading it. So if you haven’t already, feel free to comment or ask questions on any of the topics, or post about something you think or would like to hear about and I’ll see what I can do.

First day of work at the Vatican tomorrow… 3 hours of Italian tutoring!