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Old 02-11-2019, 05:28 PM   #56
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

Quote:
Originally Posted by Žorkell View Post
As far as I know Germany is also very open to cash transactions. At least I see mentioned in travel guides that you should ask before you pay with credit card if they accept a credit card. Incidentally, when I was last in Germany I bought a watch for approximately €1000 and the watchmaker didn't accept cards. And during the few days I was in Germany I don't think we ever paid for food with credit card.
Huh.

I've never specifically tried to notice, but at least the last two times I was in Germany, I could pay with either credit or debit card almost anywhere. Granted, I would often carry cash anyway, but that's because I tended to tip.

It would never occur to me to pay for something costing hundreds or thousands of Euros in cash, if only because I'm unlikely to ever carry that much cash. Well, any longer, I should say. I would do so when I was younger, I guess until I visited Romania and my wallet, containing maybe €2,000, got pick-pocketed before leaving the airport. I was going to put some of it into a sock or something and keep a smaller amount in my wallet, but it didn't occur to me that I needed to fly out like that.

Back in the 80s and 90s, my father taught me to always carry cash abroad and a variety of rules for foreign currency that applied then, but when I started travelling on my own in the early 2000s, it was more or less all outdated. Sure, there were some places where carrying significant reserves of cash made sense in the 2000s, but I can't remember any trip inside Europe in the 2010s where I had to worry that I couldn't pay with at least some card I had.

I guess maybe I might have unconsciously avoided places with a cash-only economy. I'm sure there were still some kebab places in shady neighborhoods in Berlin or Amsterdam that only accepted cash, for example, but the ones I have visited in recent years have all accepted my cards.
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Last edited by Icelander; 02-11-2019 at 05:43 PM.
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