Tuesday, October 30, 2012
On changing Moldovan Lei in Odessa
As I reached Odessa by train from Kishinev, I still had some Moldovan Lei in my pocket. Odessa is an open-minded city. You get to know friendly people very quickly. There is one exception: when it comes to changing Moldovan Lei. No money changer in the city changes Moldovan Lei. I’ve been to different banks and now I know all the shades of terse, brash, and unfriendly. The worst has been in one bank quite near to my hotel. The account type of an elderly woman in the glass box was yelling at me to read the notes on her box. Actually there were like 20 print out pages glued to the glass – and I’m not fluent in Russian. O.K. on one sheet I discovered the currencies this bank would change and the Moldovan Lei wasn’t one of these. I left the bank and looked back – Bank Antarctica. I should have known from the name that the employees of this bank must have been chosen for their quality of being ice cold.
Nevertheless I didn’t give up and had the idea to go back to where I started, right, the railway station. West of the station is a small flea market and there is ONE money changer, who accepts Moldovan Lei.
Related links for this travel:
The Very Basic Guide to Russian http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2012/10/the-very-basic-guide-to-russian.html
Crime and Punishment (St. Petersburg) http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2012/10/crime-and-punishment.html
Hram Ilias – the hidden silence near the Red Place in Moscow http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2012/10/hram-ilias-hidden-silence-near-red.html
Kishinev – the prologue of this year’s travels http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2012/10/kishinev-prologue-of-this-years-travels.html
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