A $2,900 Peso Ice cream, Yes please!

Let’s talk money here for a bit. Colombia has beautiful money. Each bill is a different color and some bills are even different sizes than the other. The idea is to make distinguishing between the bills simple. In theory it’s great, but through my experience it helps me in no way. None.  Rather, as I fumble through the bills some stick out to far while others are lost in my wad of cash. All of this as the cashier just stares at my jumbled mess.

Something else to keep in mind is $1 US is equal to $1,804.40 Yes, I just looked that up. So, in my wallet (brace yourself) I have like 4 $50,000 peso bills. Yes. That is correct. Then the bills decrease as follows: $20,000 peso bill, $10,000 peso bill, $5,000 peso bill, $2,000 peso bill, and finally the $1,000 peso bill. Then we have coins. I don’t like to use them because they confuse me. So far I’ve seen 50, 100, 200, and 500. I heard they go all the way down to 5 peso though. What’s the point? That’s like .003 US dollars. Anyways, so as I go to pay, I’m trying to do math in my mind about which bill-coin combo I should give. It’s like I’m back in 3^rd grade money math (or if you went to Gwinn and took Mrs.Soyring as a senior Ha! Math credit).  Anyways, all this thinking and the cashier is still starting at me.

To continue in the madness of money and the exchange rate, let me explain my difficulties in Spanish. When you learn numbers in a language class, you typically go up to 100, practice that a million times. Then in 1 day learn how to say 100, 200, 300, etc. The teacher briefly tells you to just add numbers on the end. Then we spend 15 minutes one class on the thousands and maybe 10 seconds one day on anything above that. So, when the cashier tells me, "cuarenta y dos mil seteciento cincuenta y tres con veinti dos", I’ve got nothing but a blank stare. I am not prepared for this.  Ha! If I happen to catch what she says, I still have to process it all. And we’re back to the scenario where the cashier is still staring at me.

You may ask, why not just look at the cash register? Well, let me tell you some more. When we write numbers in English (for example two thousand and twenty dollars and fifty cents) we would write $2,020.50. In Spanish they flip the periods and the commas. So instead, that number looks like so: $2.020,50. You may not think this is a big difference but when you’re jumbling through money, trying to do large math in your head, concentrating deeply on listening comprehension, this is the last thing you want to worry about. AND the cashier is still staring at me.

Next time I order my $2.900 peso ice cream….credit card please! ...oh yeah, they don't accept it there. Ha :)