One week to go

I have to admit that I’m finding it difficult to resist the urge to put some sort of countdown timer on my site to display the exact time left before going to Africa. My excitement is similar in intensity to a child waiting for Christmas.

On Wednesday I went into Stirling to get my foreign currency for my trip. I’ve never seen so many US dollars. Economically it seems like quite a good time to go. Lots of African currencies are tied to the dollar and it’s pretty weak at the moment. The pound on the other hand has the opposite “problem” (it kinda depends how you look at it). Something that isn’t often mentioned in the British press is the state of the Australian and New Zealand Dollars. On Wednesday the Daily Telegraph ran a story titled “Australia may go down under as it faces up to a worse financial crisis than US”. The article ends with “Both the Australian and New Zealand dollars have fallen hard in recent days and now appear to be breaking down… against major currencies, including the US dollar”. The article also features a quote from the currency chief of BNP Paribas Hans Redeker “The Aussie is going down, big time”.

A bigger problem is the one currently faced by Italy. Quite a few economists believe Italy might be the first country ever to be kicked out of the eurozone. A report issued by Capital Economics said “An ugly combination of weak GDP growth, poor international competitiveness and rising government borrowing costs could lead to renewed calls for Italy to leave the Euro”. Italy is on the cusp of it’s fourth recession in 10 years. The idea of a return of Italy’s previous currency, the Lira, has already been floated by two cabinet ministers. It makes you wonder what we have to moan about.

Whilst this is very interesting, it does have the possible benefit of making the trip ever so slightly cheaper for me and possibly ever so slightly more expensive for my Kiwi traveling companions. Oh well, it’s only money.