Yesterday I stood for what turned out to be an embarrassingly long time at Billa looking for a quarter in my wallet. This was embarrassing not because I didn't have enough money to pay my bill of 22.25 but because there isn't a quarter in Bulgaria.  So I stood that the checkout looking for a non-existent coin in my wallet while the cashier and everyone behind me in line was waiting for me to pay.

[caption id="attachment_2448" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Money, Money"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dsc01623.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-2448" title="Money, Money" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dsc01623.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a>[/caption]

Then while digging through all of the coins looking for a quarter, I dug out a .50 coin and I had this realization that I was looking for something that doesn't exist.  Here and now. That what I am looking for is a remnant of another time and place. I thought: Carolyn, pay and get out of here. <!--more-->And so I paid with a 20 leva note, a 2 leva note and two .10 cent coins and a .05 cent coin, took my groceries and my receipt and went on my way.

On my way home I tried to think about what it means that after almost two years living here I was just standing at the checkout looking for a quarter in a country that doesn't do quarters.  I didn't come up with anything very insightful. Then I wondered what the purpose of the .20 cent and .50 cent coins were--I mean do you really need both when you could just have a quarter.  My musings ended on the lev coin when I had to wrestle the front door open with a bag full of groceries. My last thoughts were the lev coin it's a dollar coin rather than a bill. I like the lev--the size, the shape and even the two tone coloring. It's a practical coin. We should have one in the States.

But I digress.

This is a post about change. The change that you don't have, wish you had and what you have in reality. Yesterday the .20 cent coin and the .50 coin felt strange in my hands.  I thought: who needs a .20 cent coin? But today, I can't help but thinking: who needs a quarter? I guess what it comes down to is that in a country where no one ever seems to have enough coins to make you change it doesn't matter what denomination your coins are in it just matters that you have them.

But I also guess this is a post about changing and being changed by a place and the surprise you feel when the world you used to live in catches up to you in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.