After an exhausting day of travel and walking, we arrived in Prague.   We trekked off the train looking for a taxi and for the first time started to consider that the Czech actually use a currency other than Euro.   I took a quick peek into the rail station hope and confirmed my suspicions as nothing had the Euro symbol and the large number of zeros after each small item amount gave me pause…

No problem, there’s an ATM, we can just withdraw the local currency.   Only once we were on the amount selection screen of the ATM did we consider that didn’t actually realize what the conversion factor was.   So we guessed.   Or rather, my husband hit a button.   And took out 10,000.   Yup, no 100 or 1,000—numbers that aren’t completely astronomical and possibly unlikely to be part of the current balance of our travel debit account, but a whopping 10,000.   

It wasn’t until we were back in the hotel that his brain registered what he did and he started to panic a little.  He told me in all seriousness that it was possible he took out $2,500 but it might have only be $25.  In reality, it was $400…[Ed. note: I was sleepy, and the math was right but wrong at the same time. 1:25 factor = $4 to 100 Czech, but I flipped the #’s, and thus the $2,500 or $25 guess. Small things…]

We still have 2 months left before we’re spending USD again…we better figure this out quickly…and not tell anyone I work in finance!  

Oh, and the taxi only took Euro…