herz voller gold, taschen voller luft...

This just in.  With less than five days to go, I am over-budget by approximately €300.  I was hoping to get by on what I’d left in my Irish bank account after the semester was over and for the first two and a half weeks, I was doing pretty darn well.  Luckily, during those times when I'm waiting on a train with no Internet, I have created a budget that I keep updated partly because it gives me something to do and partly because I thought it would be useful to see where I'd gone wrong in spending my money.  (Even when I was under budget, the outlook for remaining so was bleak.  I have always been an impulse buyer.)  Turns out, it's a two way street.

it's a purple, money-spending kind of day

You can go wrong spending money.  For example, my first meal in Bern cost almost as much as four days worth of food in Munich once I worked in all the exchange rates.  It was one of those "3,70 CHF for a take away container full of food!!!" that only tells you in the small print that it's per #grams of food.  Let me tell you, I shoved a crapton of vegetarian goodness into that take-away container and I paid for it...literally.  (Turns out Switzerland is just expensive.)  I also bought a day pass for Bern's public transportation, not knowing that I would really only need one journey.  Another example, I accidentally purchased two bus tickets in Florence instead of just one.  Those are euros I will never get back.

But, something I realized as I was trying to figure out how on earth I had managed to spend so much money while I'm going hungry 80% of the time in an attempt to make up for the souvenirs I've bought, spending money when you're traveling is what pays.  Dresden, for example, was really nice.  Most of what I wanted to see was free, so all I really needed was a Wochenkarte for the trams and a ticket to Stadt Wehlen for my hiking trip and I was set.  Even the single room I splurged on was, in all honesty, a better deal than some hostel dorm rooms (only €118.80 for four nights).  I found a Lidl and could live off €8.70 worth of food plus a few snacks.  But different places mean different prices, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

radler, salat, käsespätzle

As I grew more comfortable/confident speaking German, it got easier to go out and do other things that are important to experiencing a culture.  I bought strawberries from a woman at a market and she talked to me about their origin and how sometimes they press down on each other but that doesn't mean they've gone bad and how they're organic so I don't have to wash them.  An experience well worth the €3,90 I paid for the strawberries.  I ate dinner in a Biergarten in Munich and had ice cream overlooking Salzburg.  For €8,50 I took a German-language tour through a castle I'd never seen before and understood almost every word and got to experience the best special exhibit on Ludwig II's life.  The list goes on.  Sure, I could have skipped out on things like the €85 Cinque Terra tour and done it for myself, but lunch wouldn't have been provided so I probably wouldn't have eaten it, and I wouldn't have met fellow travelers or known where to go.

eis

Even my tacky souvenirs.  Not all of them are tacky, okay?  And, through these little trinkets, I get to share my experience with the people I love.  So, do I regret the 22--CHF I spent on dinner last night?  Hell yes.  But can I live with it?  Of course.  Learning is a part of life.  So often nowadays you have to pay to learn things, but I guess Newton got it right in more ways than just physics when he came up with the rule that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.  I take money out of my pocket, but for every piece of paper and little metal coin that leaves my hands, I gain a new experience, and I'm okay with that.

Needless to say, though, my birthday could not come soon enough.