Foreign exchange

All we did was cross the border into Canada and we were rich! The rate of exchange at the time we entered was $1.40 of Canadian to one American dollar. Not bad. Prices at the fast food franchises listed the same as those in the States.
But then there was that confusing stop at the gas station. I still haven’t quite figured that one out. We had already entered Canada when we realized we should have filled up in America. Too late for that, the tank gauge pointed to empty and we were in a foreign country. We began looking around for a gas station. Our first venture international exchange rates.
Gas averaged around 55 cents per liter, give or take a few tenths of a cent. There are no .9 after the 55 cents. In Canada, gas ranged from 54.3 cents per liter to 54.5 cents per liter. I thought I kind of knew the comparison of a liter to a gallon or a quart, until my husband said it was an imperial liter, which is a bit different.
The gas stations may have looked like those in the U.S., but they weren’t. Attendants came to the window, asked “how much gas we wanted and how is everything under the hood?” My husband hesitated before finally saying, “Better check.” As he bent to release the lever from inside for the woman, he mused. “It has been a long time since anyone asked me that. I almost forgot what to say.”
They actually washed the windshield and back window while the gas was pumping.
The young woman said we were down a quart and she would put it in, for about three times the cost American. When my husband declined, the guy gave directions to a discount store where we could buy oil to add ourselves. It costs us $1.40, Canadian.
The confusing part was the gas cost. Supposedly the charge, $34 in Canadian money, will be converted to American when we received the credit bill. I hope so. It usually costs around $20 to fill the mini-van. It seems like we paid a lot for gas, even if everyone said we got a good price.
During our week in the hotel, we stopped at a local deli-grocery store to buy snacks to eat in the hotel room. I cringed at the sticker prices, but knew they better than the costs of food machines at the hotel. The clerk rang up $13.56. I gave her an American $20. She punched some code for the exchange rate and counted out $13.47 in Canadian monopoly money.
The groceries cost half as much after the exchange. I looked at all that cash and shrugged, international finances is not my thing.
At the mall, where I shopped for something to take back to my daughter, I found a couple of the currently popular baby doll T-shirts, two for $14. I figured that’ around $10, American, and pulled out my left-over Canadian bills to pay. Then the clerk hit the ‘tax added button’ and the price went up another 15 percent. I closed my eyes and gave her more pink, blue and yellow bills.
Richer in Canada? I wonder. But the time we left, I was a lot poorer.