When we went on our honeymoon last September--a mere 7 months ago--$1.41 bought you 1 euro--and we thought that exchange rate was high. However, the situation has only worsened. Today, you have to pay $1.57 (or more, depending on who is performing the exchange) to buy a single euro, and the increase means that even if costs remain the same in Europe, costs will increase by 11 percent for us (or more, depending on where the euro goes in the next 5 months). To keep our expenses at a reasonable level, I took a look at our vacation plan to find some areas that we could cut.
We had planned to take guided 1-day tours to Cinque Terre (from Florence) and the Dolomites (from Venice), but we decided that we could visit the CT on our own, so we booked only the Dolomites tour. We can't easily visit the Dolomites in a day without a car, and renting a car in Italy sounds like one of the most stressful experiences ever--not my cup of olive oil. Unfortunately, the cost of the day trip is a tad over the top, especially when you consider the exchange rate with which we are currently working. The charge finally showed up on our debit card a few weeks ago, and I nearly fell off my chair when I realized how much the total was going to be.
B and I talked it over, and we decided that while we were sad to miss it, we could live without a day trip to the Dolomites, especially if it meant savings that we can use for something else on our trip, like a day trip on our own to the Venetian hill towns and a nice meal to celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary (which will happen while we are in Venice--guess we'll eat the frostbitten freezer cake when we get back).
And--if we're being honest here, and we do try our best to be honest--there's another reason why we are ok with missing our Dolomites day trip. The ants in my pants over the Germany Christmas trip were too much to ignore, so last week I bought plane tickets for our trip. We're going for 6 nights and plan to stay in Munich for 2 nights, Salzburg for 1 night, and then back to Munich for the final 3 nights. Yay for German and Austrian Christmas fun! It's going to be an Italian, Greek, Croatian (is that a word?), German, and Austrian Christmas, everybody! Get in your requests now!
And now if we're being completely honest (in a full-disclosure sort of way), I suppose the title of this post is misleading. When you consider the cost of the plane tickets and the amount of the refund for the day trip, we're still talking about a net loss, and I don't think a net loss can ever be considered a budget cut. In other words, don't cry for me, Italia--the truth is, I will enjoy you to the fullest.
