Non, nein, no: Europe turns negative on the euro

[frigidmagi]

Timesonline

[quote]A FRENCH diplomat who spent the festive period at his weekend home in rural France was astonished last week when a man in a DIY shop presented him with a bill in francs, rather than in euros, with the excuse: “I am sorry, monsieur, most of my clients prefer it that way.â€

[elderdan]

I was in Europe less than six weeks before the 2002 switchover, and again about a year later. In 2001, when I was in Italy, it was 2200 lira to the US dollar and the Euro was very close to the buck. So you'd think they'd more or less divide all the prices by 2000, right? One later I come back, the Euro and dollar are still pretty close, but all the prices in Italy were divided by approximately *1000*, across the board, everything from train tickets to the hotels I used to my favorite restaurants right down to frickin' cappucino. I asked the owner of one of the restaurants what had happened with the prices and he basically said, he had no idea but all his suppliers had basically doubled their prices when the switchover happened, so he doubled his prices on the menu, but salaries didn't seem to have caught up so now nobody could afford to eat out.

--The Elder Dan

[frigidmagi]

Honestly Dan that sounds like a bunch of assholes trying to take advantage of the situation to grab some extra cash from people. I mean the suppliers of course.