how bad is it that someone did not know that Greece used the Euro as the currency? even after the news spam about eurocrisis?
Like yesterday the topic of the Euro came up because im planning a europe trip with somone and she asked does Greece use the Euro? and I said yes and (explained the situation with the bailouts and Austerity possibility of a greexit before the talks finished, and the Negotiations and passage in parliment) and she said "oh i should follow current events more". I was astouned, its like she ignored greece when it was on the local news, national news, time covers, newspapers, website front page stories etc.. is this a common thing?
Clive2015-07-27T11:05:05Z
Unfortunately it IS very common - far too many people are obsessed with celebrities and music and know all about that, but have no idea about real life. "Oh that's boring." Well, yes, maybe it's not exciting but it's IMPORTANT, and pretty stupid to turn up there without knowing the first thing about where you're visiting.
I'm British and it is rather depressing to see questions from Americans who think we use the euro. Good grief... no we don't and we deliberately didn't join because it's a daft idea.
Your own comment that there are 50 European states suggests that your own European geography isn't that good either.
Does she even know that there are countries that don't speak English? There are plenty of Americans that don't seem to know that. Many years ago I went on a tour of a salt mine in Austria and there was an American family on the tour. No English-speaking guide was available that day so we were taken round in fluent German. I provided a translation of the bits I could understand - the Austrian accent is one I find difficult. "Wow, you understand this stuff?" Well of course I do, I learned it at school. Not to a fluent level, but enough to understand that much. What's so strange about knowing another language or two, when you live so close to other countries than you can easily pop over to them? Hehe she'd have fun in Greece... they don't even use the same alphabet.
Yes, it is among young people. They can tell you the words to any song or tell you what celebrities are doing what, etc. but can't tell you anything about politics because it's boring to them.