One of the fun things about spending foreign money is that it doesn't feel like real spending. It feels like play money, Monopoly money. I don't know at what point I crossed the line, but I'm definitely past that. Swiss francs are now real money, and I look at the green American paper in my wallet and think, "What is this? Do people actually accept this as payment?" No doubt that will not last long, once I am home, but it's a weird feeling.
I've long been in favor of following the lead of the many countries that have replaced their lower-denomination bills with coins. Now that I've worked with such a system for over a month, here are some observations:
- The lowest Swiss bill is the 10-franc note. There are 5-, 2-, 1-, and 1/2-franc coins. Practically speaking, this means I can no longer ignore coins. In America, when I get change back from a purchase, I usually dump the coins in my wallet without checking them, as no error can cost me more than a dollar. Here, where the change might be worth nearly ten dollars, it's worth at least a quick glance. I was quite proud of myself when I noted in one transaction that the cashier had mistakenly given me a 2-franc coin instead of a 5-franc coin.
- I had to train myself to make a point of using coins. Using bills all the time results in a heavy wallet; once I discovered I had over Fr. 40- in change! Once you get used to the idea of not ignoring change, however, it's not a problem to keep the quantity down to something reasonable.
- The lowest denomination coin is the 5-rappen piece. This is a good practice; I see no need for the U. S. to continue to mint cents, other than to feed those fun machines at tourist sites that make elongates. The existence of those machines is to my mind the only compelling reason for keeping the cent.
- I've gotten quite good at paying with change, but still have trouble distinguishing the 1-franc coin from the 20-rappen piece, and the 1/2-franc coin from the 10-rappen piece, when they are jumbled up in my wallet. I have to look at the number on the coin to be certain, and I find that annoying.
- Swiss merchants don't blink when you hand them a 100-franc bill; in the U. S. I don't like carrying $100 bills because clerks suspect them of being counterfeit, and even if convinced a bill is real, will grumble if your purchase is small.
- Paying with cash is much more common in Switzerland than in the U. S. Debit cards are handy, though, when buying train tickets; trying to convince the automatic ticket machine to accept your bills (or coins) can sometimes be a problem.
- A common debit card is the Post-Finance card. Once you get over the shock of thinking of a bank and the post office being the same organization, you begin to wonder if the system works because the former subsidizes the latter. (I have no idea if it does; the thought just occurred to me as a possible explanation for the mysterious combination of banking and postal services. I know that combination is not just in Switzerland, but I haven't researched how it might have come about.)
- Nearly all shopping is done with Swiss francs, but I've noticed that in shops catering specifically to tourists they will sometimes give the price in Euros as well.
Shopping here is as fun as shopping gets because (1) I can walk where I need to go, (2) it's usually not urgent, but part of the process of exploring the city, (3) there's still a challenge in paying with the right change instead of merely handing over a large bill, and (4) there's always the thrill of trying to get by without English. The last is much easier than I had imagined. Knowing a few words of German—notably "please," "thank you," "where is?" and "I'm sorry, but I don't understand German"—goes a long way. It's also a great help that the cash registers display the total price, so I don't have to try to understand rapid-fire cashier language. I'm happy to report that I have managed totally in a combination of German, Swiss German, and gestures—except for one of my trips to the tea shop, where the clerk spoke in English because I had filled out a form with my U.S. address. My proudest moment was asking, "Wo sind die Stilleinlagen?" and making myself understood with no need for repetition or gestures (the latter being a very good thing).
