The Simplest Souvenir: Money

Do you struggle to find an appropriate souvenir when you travel? One that will remind you of the place and fit in your bag to travel and not take up too much space at home? How about... money?!

I kept a few bucks from the Cayman Islands on our trip two weeks ago.



My habit of stashing a small bit of currency from other countries didn't start as souvenir-keeping. The first few things I tucked into my collection were things I found by chance. Canadian coins. A German Deutschmark. Spanish Pesetas. US $2 bills.

My stash of foreign money ramped up when I traveled overseas frequently for work many years ago. Then, it was part practical. When I obtained local currency I couldn't always spend all of it before I went home. I did have a strategy for using up as close to all of it as possible. For example, late in my trip I'd shift things I could pay with a credit card, like a simple restaurant meal, to cash if I needed I had too much cash. Though when I anticipated returning to a country soon I'd often keep a larger amount to start off my next trip. That was useful because some times in-country you need local currency before you can find a convenient place to get local currency. (ProTip: research ahead of time where to find low-fee/no-fee cash machines in the airport.)

But usually, if I spent my cash down to the equivalent of a few dollars US, I'd just keep the change as a souvenir. That's what I did here with this $2.55 KY. At the pegged exchange rate of 1 KYD = 1.25 USD it's worth $3 US and change.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King!

"Why is the Queen still on the money?" you might wonder. Queen Elizabeth II of England passed away months ago yet her face is still all over the place in the Cayman Islands, a country which is still technically part of the British Empire. She's in framed pictures in government offices, her name is still on buildings and parks, and her likeness still fills the country's currency.

For those wondering why England's former queen is on the money at all, it's because Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory. Their head of state is the British monarch, who appoints a governor for each BOT. One of our local guides explained that things like the currency are changed only when the governor receives official instruction from the crown to change them. That seems a little weird... but then again, so is still being a colony with a foreign king in the 21st century. Apparently bringing this up to date with 2023... or even 1953... hasn't been high on King Charles III's list of priorities.

From Hiking to... Housecleaning?

I had a great plan for today. I would get up early-ish, do some multiple of 20 minutes of housecleaning, then we'd drive over the mountains early enough to beat the traffic, and walk the ocean bluffs in Santa Cruz. It would be a great day even though summer weather hasn't arrived yet. It only feels like late April. But it doesn't have to be hot to enjoy West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz (in fact it's better if it's not), and It's been over a year since we were last there in Feb 2022.

Well, by about 9:00 this morning that plan was shot to shit. I did get up early, but I was too tired to do housework. I vegged for a while. Hawk got up later and also was tired. Together we decided we'd punt on Santa Cruz with needing an early start and instead hike somewhere else, after lunch. We were thinking our favorite trail at Las Trampas.

Then 11:30 rolled around, time to pick where to go to lunch, and again the plan fell apart. We did still go to lunch, but Hawk was too tired to want to hike right after, and I was tired enough not to disagree. Instead we went for donuts after lunch.

But we did get a walk in today. At lunch I overheard someone mention the Art & Wine festival is in town this weekend. We went after donuts.



The Art & Wine show comes to town maybe twice a year. We don't always go, though enough times we catch the same show when it rotates through another town in the area. Sometimes we hit it in Mountain View, Santa Clara, or even Fremont instead of Sunnyvale.

So, what about that housecleaning? Well, after the art & wine show I got busy with it!



One of the tasks I set for myself today was to clean all three of our balconies/patios. The scuzziest is the kitchen balcony, shown in the photo above. First I swept it, then hosed it down, then decided it still needed more cleaning. I mixed some bleach water, scrubbed the surface with a shop broom, and hosed it down again.



The result is pretty good if I do say so myself.

In addition to cleaning this balcony I also swept our bedroom balcony and our back patio. And I vacuumed the dining room and kitchen. Then, going back to the outdoors, I set out our patio chairs.



It's a great time to get the patio and balcony into shape to enjoy, as summer is just around the corner— both officially and weather-wise. Normally we'd be well into summer weather by now but it's been April-ish the past week or so. Still, that's an improvement from 10 days ago when our weather still resembled late March. Today provided a glimpse of summer, with the high temperature topping out at a beautiful 82°. And after working up quite a sweat from all that cleaning I was 110% ready to enjoy that beer in the shade.