European economy to surpass US
So next year the euro will outstrip the US dollar.
I remember when we first moved here the exchange rate was 90 US cents to the euro. Today the exchange rate is $1.29 = €1. If only we had known *grin* At the time, there was an awful lot of complaining about the conversion from the old Irish Punt; some shops were taking advantage of the rough conversion rates and rouding up . . . sometimes dramatically so. Most Irish people will tell you that things in general became more expensive with the conversion to the euro for no other reason than general human greed on the street level. Within a year most of the dust had settled and people seemed resigned to using the new currency. Collectors went nuts. Prices leveled off.
At the moment, most european nations are using the euro, saving travelers an awful lot in currency conversion. The most salient exception has got to be England; holding steadfast to their beloved British pound. I had my head almost bitten off at a festival in the UK once when I asked, innocently and without knowledge of the general British sentiment on the subject, when England was going to convert to the euro. The girl I was speaking to launched into a tirade about how the euro was controlled by Germany and how her grandparents fought the Germans and she sure as hell wasn’t going to give in now to their blood-drenched currency.
Seeing as how we were getting on so famously, I opted not to mention anything about Irish grandparents and England.