| The
Euro
On January
1, 2002 Spain officially change to the Euro along with 12
other countries in the EU who decided to adopt the new currency.
Those 12 countries are:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Greece
- Ireland
- Italy
- Luxemburg
- The Netherlands
- Portugal
- Spain
Note
the absence of the UK as well as Sweden, which recently
voted to keep their own currency rather than change to the
Euro. Otherwise the Euro has made things a lot easier for
travellers who now do not have to exchange money every time
they cross a different border. While many miss the peseta
few would disagree that coins are now easier to manage.
Around 1992 Spain introduced a whole new set of coins for
the peseta. Until the switch to the Euro you had to manage
almost two of every coin - ie: two types of 25 peseta coins,
two types of 50 peseta coins. To make it worse there were
many machines for drinks, food, etc. which only took one
tupe of coin.
In Spain
there was a rush to convert pesetas earned in the black
market (money not undeclared to the government) to Euros
before the January 1st switch. Many chose real estate as
a good way to "legitimize" their undeclared pesetas
and this led to a steep increase in property values within
the cities. The result has been prices of houses so high
in the center of Seville that most average people cannot
afford to buy a house. It's not uncommon to see the price
of an apartment of 100 square meters (approx. 1075 sq. feet)
in the center to go for 300,000€, or approximately
$345,000.
While
Spain is officially using the Euro that doesn't mean the
peseta has dissappeared. Most Spaniards still think in pesetas.
Some stores still show the price in both pesetas and euros,
and the shopkeepers are even more likely to convert to pesetas
when discussing the price of an item with you. In more than
half of my conversations with Spaniards about salaries,
real estate, cars and a half dozen other topics they still
refer to the amount in pesetas. The result is confusion
for me as I tend to think in Euros and dollars. If you want
to keep up with amounts as they talk about them here then
familiarize yourself with the following calculations:
- 1€
= 166 pesetas
- 100 pesetas
= 0.66 €
So what does the Euro look like? All coins share the same
front but there is a different design for each country on
the back. There are also different sizes and thickness of
each coin so they are easily distinguished from one another.
Below are photos of each of the eight Euro coins. Place
your mouse over each one to see what the back looks like
in Spain.
Below
is the set of seven Euros in bill form. There are different
sizes for bills so they are easily distinguished from one
another but unlike the coins they do not have a different
reverse side for each country. I haven't seen too many of
those 500€ bills yet!
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