Happy New Year.
January first 2002 brings a new currency to many EU member states, including Austria: the Euro. I may go into greater detail about the Euro in a later post. Right now, I just wanted to quickly outline how the transition has affected us so far.
Knowing the start of the new year would bring a new currency, and in order to avoid the hassle of taking our cash in the old currency (Austrian shillings) to exchange for the new money, we simply did our best to spend it all, knowing that when the new year came, we could just go to the cash machine, otherwise known as ATM I believe, and stock up on fresh, crisp Euros.
This afternoon, on the way home from a tasty lunch of “midnight soup” at my in-laws’ house (my mother-in-law annually cooks a delicious Hungarian-style cabbage soup to eat at the turn of the new year), we did just that. I dashed into the closest bank lobby, stuck my card into the cash machine and was informed that it had expired.
Software bug, I assumed. So we drove to the next machine.
Out of order.
So we drove to our own bank in a nearby town. Expired. Alpha tried her card. Also expired.
So we drove home again. Cashless. Broke. Her car nearly out of gas, and she has to drive to work tomorrow, a commute of nearly one hour. Her father, who is a wonderful person, came to our house, filled her tank and gave her some cash to tide us over.
Tomorrow – part two: asking the bank why we weren’t sent new cash cards in time, and whether this has anything to do with the Euro transition, while the lobby is sure to be filled with a milling crowd of morons, with torches and pitchforks, surprised at this new money.
and here was I, feeling all gung-ho about the Euro and wishing that we were in it! Still, it will be an interesting year, as all the banks and retailers over here will have to use them and none of them seem to have any clue whatsoever.
On the other hand I could decide to go all Euro-sceptic and start a “Bring Back the Groat” campaign!