Scattered among my souvenirs of years of traveling are coins of
many nations, a franc here, a pound there, a peso over there. When
my daughter was quite young, I would give her the few remaining
coins from my overseas trips, encouraging her to start a coin
collection. She took the coins but never adopted the hobby.
Every so often a coin from another country slips into my pocket
after I've returned and I put it into a vending machine. It bounces
to the coin return slot several times before I check and discover
the unfamiliar visage of some overseas monarch.
On one unusual trip some years ago, I was able to gather a
starter-set for a good coin collection by visiting many countries
in quick succession.
ASTA's executive committee was traveling about Europe trying to
persuade airline officials to set up a more sensible fare structure
and I invited myself along.
We traveled from Stockholm to Paris and Rome, then on to
Amsterdam and London, completing the whirlwind tour in only a few
days.
When we arrived in London and checked into the Connaught Hotel
in Mayfair, I reached into my pocket to give the porter a tip and
discovered coins from Sweden, France, Italy and the Netherlands but
nothing in sterling.
Embarrassed, I held out my hand and showed the porter my foreign
coin collection. He took a few samples and said "not to worry, sir,
it's all grist for the mill."
It's easy to take for granted that we can tell the difference
between pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters just by touch but
learning to differentiate among a country's coins isn't easy.
The only country where I've spent enough time to get the idea is
England, where I have learned the feel of the one-pound coin
without having to examine it closely.
It's part of the great adventure of travel to learn to deal with
local currency. Figuring out how to tip appropriately can be tricky
unless you master the subject.
In my early years of traveling, I either under-tipped or
over-tipped as a result of my ignorance of the currency.
One cab driver in Paris let me know in no uncertain terms that I
had under-tipped and I simply held out my hand and let him give
himself a more generous amount.
To the best of my recollection, no one ever complained about
being over-tipped.