The post office experience

Here in France, their currency is a little different. The have pieces that are valued at 1 cent (centimes), 2 cents (centimes), 5 cents (centimes), 10 cents (centimes) and 20 cents (centimes). Here there is no tax, so most prices are like 5.99 or 5.89. So it is always easier to hand them 6.00 euros then to count out the cents. Doing this leaves you with a lot of change. Well I needed to mail a letter and decided that I would get rid of my change when I bought my stamp (because you put the money in a machine). So Raquel and I went to the post office, she went to the counter, while I went to the stamp machine. The machine told me I needed a 75 centimes stamp. So I began putting in my change. Most of my change was in 1 cent and 2 cents, and a few 5 cents. I had reached 72 cents and was about to put in the remaining 3 cents when the screen started flashing and proceeded to tell me I had put to many coins in the machine (not as in too much in price, but in number of coins). Then it began to spit out my 72 cents back at me. Well the only other coin I had was a 1 dollar (euro) coin and so I had no choice but to use it. Needless to say I walked out of that post office with more change then when I started. The joys of living in a foreign country.