Australian Money

Some of you may know that the Australian money is color coded by denomination (great idea), has different sizes for the different bills (great idea), and is waterproof (great idea...especially for when you want to swim up to the bar). The smallest bill that they have is the five dollar bill. For one and two dollars, they have coins (but, inexplicably, the $2 is smaller in size than the $1 coin... much like our dime, I guess). Being a former British colony or protectorate or commonwealth thingy, the queen is on the front side of all the coins. As a result, on many occasion I have had to catch myself from referring to the money as pounds and pence. (You'd think that I would find it easy to adapt to calling the money dollars and cents, but not so much.)

I have sheepishly handed over $50 bills at all sorts of establishments in the last month, apologizing that I had nothing smaller, but no one has been phased at all. (Guess $50 isn't worth that much over here!) Until today. The driver on the bus this morning couldn't break it. I asked what I should do, and she told me to sit down, and she'd think about it. When we arrived at the terminus, I went back and offered her my small money (two pounds, twenty five pence), but she said I should just buy someone a cup of coffee at some point today. (The bus driver this afternoon-- during rush hour-- wasn't quite so accomodating. Maybe I should have offered HIM the cup of coffee.)

They have no pennies here. They did away with the coins a few years ago. And yet, things still cost $1.97 or $23.61. So what do they do? They just round. I think the till just automatically rounds up or down when it gives you the change, assuming, I suppose, that it will all work out in the end.

Go figure.