Random Thoughts on their Money

Kia Ora!
I'll bet by now you're beginning to wonder if I'll ever shut up :-)
EIGHT days to go!

I picked up some New Zealand and Fiji currency to have handy when atms and
credit card payments are not handy.
If you have ever gotten foreign currency, you know how much some of it looks
like monopoly money.

The NZ currency has two windows in it. There is one transparent insert with
the value of the currency on it, a second is a fern branch on a transparent
window. Of course, as is normal for most of the currency of the world, the
design is elaborate, and not the scrolls and swirls we are used to. Nor
does it have the excess of whitespace as found on our currency. They have
various prominent New Zealand people on their currency and birds from New
Zealand on the reverse. Very pretty. Also, as with much of the world, they
have abandoned paper currency smaller than $5, so $1 coins are the norm. I
daresay USA will eventually follow this trend, just a question of when.

Some examples. The $5 note has Sir Edmund Hillary on it, the man who first
climbed Everest.
The $10 note as Kate Shepard, the woman responsible for getting women the
vote in New Zealand.

As you are aware, the 10cent coin features the mask we used on our patch,
but what I didn't know is that it is their smallest coin.
So, everything is rounded the nearest dime.

A rather fascinating write up on the New Zealand currency can be found here:
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/currency/Money/explaining_currency.pdf

Fiji money is a bit less interesting though just as colorful. All their
denominations from FJ$5 up feature the Queen of England. Reverse of their
bills are Fiji scenes. I've not found what their coins look like. The FJ$5
has the Nadi airport on it, and as we will be there, it might make a nice
souvenir on its own.

I can't wait!
Don Roberts