Fresh cash dash

In the time of pre-euro monetary diversity, and especially in early days of credit card banking, travelling provided the additional challenge of budgeting, planning and transacting currency exchanges even before leaving your point of departure. These days, the ubiquity of cash points and the lack of variety in European money, all you need to do is get on the plane safe in the knowledge that there will be a hole in the wall upon arrival, with a well stocked supply of money that will most likely be very similar to the type you needed for your previous trip to anywhere. Hasta la vista and so long then, fond memories of collecting coins and notes with cultural insight and increased understanding of important people in many unfamiliar territories. Once, I even taped up three sheets of euro coins, all with different nationalities and symbols, and got a sneaky feeling that royalty and power does not necessarily bring beauty and relief-genity.

But there are still differences to how money is treated in countries with fairly short cultural and geographic distance between them. In Norway, I hardly ever carry cash, as everything is really transacted with a swipe of your card. My friends get the paper or a pack of gum by pulling out the plastic. Taxis have card machines installed, many buses too, as do every corner shop, newsagent and pub. I can barely remember what Norwegian notes look like. For any sort of un- or intentional shopping spree this is a dangerous feature, as you really don't get a feel of how much you've spent until you come home and scroll through the statement in your internet bank. With no fees for usage, and cashback facilities in every shop, the actual cash machines are few and far between.

In Scotland, being without cash means that you're unlikely to get anywhere or anything, particularly on a night out. The cabs don't do cash, and many pubs sneer at your card, even if you are buying the whole room a round. I still find myself short of cash all the time, as the inherent resistance against withdrawing money in large amounts is forever playing up, meaning that I need to plan my impulse buys of papers and milk, to time my rounds carefully, and more often than not walk the half hour home, not having change for the bus or the fare for the taxi. And to be honest, I still haven't figured out the coppers either, because the UK do have a whole lot of different coins - at least compared to Norway, with four whole varieties to choose from (I think). Hopefully that means that my next trip to the bank will be a valuable one, laden as I intend to be with my tin cans of change that are mounting up in the hall. I wonder if they will give me cash for it, or put it into my account?

Eyes wide shut - Is this it?

Being new somewhere, or to something, brings the undisputed advantage of seeing everything with a fresh glance. This an unspoilt look; it won't be ruined by having seen things a thousand times before, it is unspoilt of choice and options, and fatigue and weariness from repetition will not cause things, people, views to blend together and into the background. This look is precious, and it is very hard to willingly keep it active for a longer period. Once you become used to a place and its things and its people, you stop noticing them and the quirkiness of it all. The mind tends to want to run for cover in the comfortable protection of familiarity, it urges the eye to stop noticing things that are different and unfamiliar, because that means that we, ourselves are different from everything. And the need to be fitting in is a powerful mechanism, whether it works subconsciously or if we are aware of our own wish to be one of something.

But the advantageous new and fresh glance at things can be yanked awake from time to time, even after the slumber of mundane life and day to day commonness has taken hold. In my case, usually this comes in the form of visitors, who can help bring back the enthusiasm for things I myself found uncommon, different or just fascinatingly new before, but which now has become the norm against which I see and measure other experiences.

Take rugby, for instance. When arriving in Ireland, I was struck by the ubiquity of rugby (and even more so in Edinburgh), this sport which previously was almost unknown to me, which nobody talked about in Norway, and which I believe still nobody knows the rules of. Are there even any rugby teams in Norway? The players were huge, the enthusiasm for the very male sport played in tiny shorts and chummy huddles was fascinating, and the level of conversation to which presumably intelligent people could stoop to after a few bumps on the rugby heads was astonishing. But after a while it became part of life, a concept that was there in the background and that nobody batted an eyelid at, except to wink at the players walking by with giant muscles and clingy kits. I even got a rugby shirt, my proud Irish jersey that by now is so familiar that I don't even remember what it looks like, but I would recognise it anywhere.

And then my friends came over, with a mission to do certain very British things (and yes, in Norway Britain covers everything over here on the islands, UK or Republic, or anything in between). On the top of the list was getting on a double decker bus, then eat Angus Aberdeen Steak, then watch rugby. Basically things I can easily do every week, and sometimes do. Is this something I should look at with more enthusiasm? Has my mind and eye slumbered off and shut down to the magic of buses, beef and, well, beefed up rugby players?

So we went to a match or two, studying the moves, watching the scrums and the huddles and the lock-downs and the symbolic yelling. And I didn't understand, and I was fascinated, and I was awake while seeing the games in the park that I see every Saturday, but don't really notice. It was good, and it felt like experiences again. All I need to do then is to keep noticing it, and hopefully I won't fall asleep again, and I'll notice that there is cheap hair and shower products in the supermarket, and that the Big Issue sellers are smiling and saying 'Thank you love' even if you don't buy, and that people don't talk about earnings and raises, and that the bus stops turn the other way out and that gas heating is a brilliant concept. Maybe I'll need more visitors for that?