It's about that time

My departure date is quickly approaching.  My airline leaves the morning of 4/16, which takes me first to Chicago, then a stop in Abu Dhabi to change planes, then on to Mumbai.  After all this talking about leaving, it's a little hard to believe it's finally here.

My wonderful friends all came to a send-off party for me last weekend, which really made me feel very special.  It was great to see everyone one last time. I've been running around all week, trying to think of all the things that need to be done, which has the added effect of reminding me of all the things I've procrastinated on as well.

One of my tasks last week was to convert some currency, so I'll have some to spend over there until they get my bank account set up for me.

I'm rich! Not really...that's about 500 USD

Indian money is ridiculous.  There's entirely too many zeros involved.  It gets a little confusing to try to convert it all in your head quickly, so you can decide if what you're looking to buy is a good deal or not.  I'm sure it will all start making more sense as I get exposed to it more, but for now I still have to pause and try to figure out what ₹5000 equates to (this much).  For now I just remind myself that ₹1000 is about $16, and multiply as necessary.

Further complicating matters, they don't always just call it Rupees, they also use "Lakh" and "Crore." At about $1600 you have ₹100,000, which because of the increasingly insane number of zeros is simply referred to as 1 Lakh.  Even better, they put the commas in strange places anyway, so if they were going to put it down as Rupees they'd write ₹1,00,000.  A rational human being might then consider that Crore then must equal 1 million, but then you've never been to India or had a mild concussion.  Instead, 1 Crore equals 10 million Rupees, and again with the commas, which would be written as ₹1,00,00,000 or 1Cr, which would be about $16,000.  You'd think given all those large sums that you wouldn't need any small denominations, but you'd be wrong, as there are coins too, as low as ₹1, although who knows what you'd buy with that.

So after all that you might pick up the paper and read an article like this one, and read the numbers involved, and after a while just give up and say "well that sounds like it was probably a lot of money" and go on about your day to the next challenge.