We really like the Australian bills. Each denomination is a different color and length which makes organizing one's billfold very easy. The bills are made out of plastic, I believe, for durability.
Very cool.
However, we are not terribly fond of Australian coinage. The 50 cent piece is humongous！ The $1 and $2 coins are very handy but very heavy in one's wallet. Perhaps coinage is not meant to be comfortable that way one gets rid of it as soon as possible. An really, how many pictures of the Queen can one wallet take? There are no pennies (yay!) and no $1 bills. The picture shows Australian money alongside some US coins.
Miscellaneous: Roundabouts (what we call rotaries). They seem to work really well when there is adequate acreage to create them. Coca-cola has clearly taken over the world including Oz - geesh, the length a girl has to go to find some Pepsi (Light or Max) around here. Generally things are more expensive here. I had to go into a couple of grocery stores to confirm this. As best we can calculate individual items are 12-15% higher and the GST is 10%. Touristy stuff in the southern hemisphere is as kitschy as the stuff we sell here (or anywhere else for that matter).
2 comments:
Find yourself a mini-roundabout sometime. Take the intersection of two normal-sized roads (where we would have a 2-way or 4-way stop) and put a painted red circle in the middle fo the oh-so-slightly enlarged intersection... THAT is nervewracking. According to Ian, people coming from the right always have the right-of-way. Big ronudabouts are cake. Tiny ones are scary. Trust me!
Love the pictures! They really make it all come to life! And I am with you on your insights about the bills and coins. However, I wonder if things are not so much expensive in OZ, but rather that the dollar is worth so little?
I thought they were called roundabouts in the US, too. Silly me.
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