Best Financial Crisis Ever
American expats in Europe, please proceed in an orderly fashion to your nearest ATM – because tonight, drinks are on you!
Bloomberg is reporting what those of us too broke not to worry about such things already know – that the U.S. dollar, sinking like a Boilermaker shotglass for over a year now, has risen at a dizzying rate since early August to a 13-month high of $1.38 to the euro.
This chick says it has nothing to do with America’s economic crisis, but it’s funny how it all seemed to happen at once. Could it be that, like my super-rich friend and a top hedge fund manager, everyone is moving their money to T-Bills? Don’t know, and don’t care – I’M RICH!
To put this into perspective, let’s take my apartment here in the sunny South of France. If I had had this 575-euro apartment when I moved to Europe back in October of 2002, it would have cost me $567. At the dollar’s all-time low in July of this year, it was $909 (which is a lot of fucking money and therefore did not get paid on time). And today, after I gleefully call my landlord, Monsieur Jean-Jean, to inform him that I will be paying October’s loyer during the mois of October, I will go to the cashpoint and take out the equivalent of only $795.
My cigarettes are a buck cheaper than they were this summer, which adds up to $30 more a month, which means mommy needs some Veuve. Rome Boy can afford an extra pint tonight when he goes to the bar, a fact he’s keen to put to the test this evening. We’re finally replacing our broke-ass ghetto DVD player. We’re our own little economic stimulus.
While American expats understandably have strong sympathy for the plight of floor traders and home owners everywhere, there are tentative, giggling whispers in the dusty corners of bars all over Europe about all the money we suddenly have. So, you know, sorry about the world ending – I’m going shopping!
Glad to see one of the girls “above the date stamp!” Buy some shoes for me — I’ll be living vicariously!! BTW, can we all crash on your couch if PG/Talibunny win?
@Mistress Cynica: Honey, if that happens, the world will end and we’ll all be meeting up in the back pool room of hell.
HUZZAH! I must echo Mistress Cynica and express my deeelite to see your name “above the date stamp,” which in this thread is not code for “insert douchebag self-important blogger’s name HERE.”
Seriously, get me some Louboutins. Peep toe sling back, matte black, US size 8.5, please. The check is in the mail.
ADD: And to anyone who has not read RomeGirl’s travel blog, please do! It’s better than Calgon.
RG, we sold the rest of our euros this summer when the dollar was at it’s weakest, which just means that we have a couple hundred extra greenbacks vulnerable to the Great (no, Best!) Depression Fail.
@JNOV: Her blog is the bomb, but I keep up via her fabulous tweets. Glad to see more pink on the Stinque!
And nabisco, in a coyly worded play, has brought The Shocker obliquely to Stinque.
Yay! XX power! Great post, Romegirl–as someone who aspires to be an expat again (sooner rather than later if there is a Hope FAIL next month), this is good news. Can you have Nojo add a link to your travel blog so I can read of your adventures too?
I’m sorry I missed the play-by-play of live blogging with you all last night, but I did have the special privilege of tuning in with Homofascist and Mr. Homofascist at Mr. HF’s fantabulously beautiful home last night. And as mesmerizing as Talibunny’s alternating cheesy winks and death stares were, I still had a hard time paying attention. You see, HF and Mr. HF are too. cute. for. words. I wanted to resent them for being so perfect together, but I couldn’t because they’re so damn nice too! Plus, they fed me vodka tonics and hummus.
I feel really blessed by the FSM/powers that be to have the chance not only to connect with all of you here, but also to meet in person with other Stinquers. I’m sure the other people who have had similar meet-ups agree. Y’all are amazing–big snugglebunny hugs for everyone!
Awww, you guys know how to make a girl feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
@RomeGirl: I don’t necessarily want to live in France, but do you have suggestions of other countries one might want to evacuate to? Canada is out because the Conservative Party there is probably going to cream the Liberals and NDP. Britain might be as well because I don’t think Labour’s going to make it during the next election.
@RomeGirl: Are you in deepest darkest France? Prommie and Mrs. Prommie spent their honeymoon on a canal boat on the canal du midi, visiting Carcassone, Beziers, Sete. Marseillan, where the Noilly Pratt which makes my gin drinkable is made. This is deepest darkest France where no americans go. I love buying wine from a gasoline pump, by the gallon.
GAH, I just got into a shouting match with a mouth-breather co-worker. I hate the right wing so much…GAH! GAH!
Fucking anti-intellectual scum. They should be driven into the sea, all of them.
@rptrcub: Italy. The way the dollar is going, I’ll be back there sooner than I’d even dreamed. It is hands-down the best place ever. Nobody gives a shit about anything but having fun and eating well. OH, and it’s breathtakingly beautiful.
@Prommie: I’m in Montpellier. I’ve described it to people as a Frances Mayes book rewritten by Hunter S. Thompson and illustrated by Salvadore Dali. I’ve never quite experienced a place so strange and boozy – and I’m speaking as someone who was a bartender at a dive bar under the BQE, and in the advertising business. I’m going to Sete tomorrow, though, on a rare day off, for lunch on the sea!
@RomeGirl:
Yeah. Rub it in. I’m in Burbank right now, which I would describe as a cross between a strip mall and the set from “Leave It To Beaver”.
@rptrcub: /TJ – Dude! You have to read about my new p-doc and tell me if you think I’m even more insane that I already admit for continuing to see him.
/end TJ
Damn Girl, I am so jealous. I’m off to the currency exchange at lunch to buy some Argentinian pesos, but somehow I don’t think I’ll get such a great deal.
@JNOV: Ugh. Ugh! My only “experience” with The Shocker comes from a playfully childish friend who likes to make jokes about it, which jokes always make me more or less uncomfortable. But he is Id personified, so I don’t take anything he says too seriously.
@IanJ: I’m slapping the next person who does it to me.
What’s this? Another fresh voice? I don’t know whether my delicate constitution can handle all the excitement. (And props to Blogenfreude for playing Yentl behind the scenes.)
@JNOV: I should hope so. That’s the kind of thing you don’t spring on someone until both parties are agreed that it sounds like fun.
@nojo: Are you kidding? Stinque has so many possibilities. Don’t let that worry your pretty little head.
@IanJ: That’s furry little head, mister.
@nojo: Duly noted.
@nojo: Yentl? Oy …
@blogenfreude: Well, somebody has to arrange the matches. Young people can’t decide these things themselves.
@RomeGirl: I stayed in a place right off the Egg, and got gently boozy in a cafe sitting and watching the amazing trolley light rail thingy go by, Montpellier is one of the places I have always been determined to go back to.
@RomeGirl: I’m going flyfishing for troutskys in the Jemez Mountains SE of Los Alamos tomorrow amidst the spruce and ponderosas with my old conservative buddy, with whom I can never discuss politics. I haven’t been a lot of places, but the places I go to I know well and love a lot. I’ll get out there beyond Mexico and Canada some day. I’ll tip a beer and light a cigar streamside for you all manana. I’ll be trying flies later tonight. Gotta go unload a truck full of wood I bought from a tribal client’s operation after a meeting this morning. “Working at home” this afternoon. Heh.
@RomeGirl:
I agree that Italy is an ideal place for US ‘Meriken expats. I am also fond of Holland, the Netherlands, Argentina, and southern Spain.
Also very glad to see some Pinque Stinque. I told NoJo that I am preparing my opus entitled “A Lifelong Feminist Vomits, Pulls Her Hair Back, and Discusses Sarah Palin” to be published on Stinque but I get the shakes every time I write another sentence so it’s slow-going. Glad some XY chromosomes (that’s for you, Manchu!) are representing.
@SanFranLefty: The most intimate act I have ever performed with a woman was to hold her hair back while she vomited. Chicks have no idea how this act makes a man feel bonded to a woman.
Just one of life’s oddities.
@SanFranLefty: @Promnight: Clarification: Shouldn’t you pull your hair back before you vomit?
@SanFranLefty: @RomeGirl: Spent a few weeks roaming Italy in 2002. The Euro was, like, 82 cents at the time. Loved the country and the people, although the anti-African / anti-“Gypsy” sentiment I found in talking to most folks was disturbing. The two places I felt most comfortable were Milano (yes, really), and Venice. I did not want to leave Venice, ever.
Spent the month of May, 2006 in Ger / Czech / Aus / Neth. The Euro was a buck-and-a-quarter so still not too bad. If I were in my twenties again, I would have found a way to stay in Berlin and reclaim citizenship there. Prague was wonderful, and Amsterdam was like a pair of comfortable old Earth Shoes that you’d found in the back of your closet, and they still fit.
RomeGirl, I envy you for your ex-pat status.
@Ewalda: The anti-African/anti-Gypsy vibe is why I never liked Spain even though I lived there for almost a year. Really freaky racist shit there.
Oh, and I didn’t mean to say Holland and Netherlands. I actually meant Denmark and Netherlands. Whoops. All those white men speaking consonant-laden languages blend together.
If only I had bought $100o in euros in 2001, damn….
I have friends who have never left Prague..or Geneva..or Rome..or Paris. I just hope they will let me stay on their couches if the worse happens in five weeks.
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