I asked different international student to let me borrow their banknotes from their countries or travelling experience with a story the banknote reminded them of. This was a little tricky since I had 500 words for my whole outcome and 10 banknotes I wanted to talk about that meant I had to shorten some stories to an average of 50 words, but came out with great short stories.
This banknote is like having a piece of Romania with me, although it reminds me that with such is not even enough to buy a bread. Regardless, still waiting for that moment to get back home and my mother giving me that 1 leu to go to the corner shop.
The first memory that comes to mind when looking at my one dollar bill is from living in the states. When I went to school everyday and made sure it was in my bag to buy my daily packet of cookies.
Walking by Buckingham Palace in busy London I looked down and I saw this amazing looking banknote. At first I didn’t even know it was money, but when I realised I thought it could be worth a lot. Turns out it was barely 10p, not even enough for spices in Bangladesh.
I never tend to see my friends from home any more, since we all live in different countries. Spontaneously we decided to go for a short trip to Croatia. After a night out in an island we decided to get a taxi boat home, for just 10 Kunas each.
After living outside of Europe for a year, I came back to see we had new banknotes, the 5$ was the only one that had changed so far. My first impression was that it was fake and that the coffee house was scamming me, however me and my aunt had 2 great coffees.
With a $20 note you can travel from one side of Hong Kong to another. That's what I miss about growing up there, one minute I'm at home looking at the ocean and mountains and $20 dollars later, I'm right in the middle of a concrete neon jungle.
Every day I’m at uni, my friends and I walk down Broadway to buy Miso soup and sushi rolls with a five dollar note each. We choose Japanese, but in that part of Sydney, we could just as easily get Indian, Burmese, Thai, Malaysian or Vietnamese.
The first big trip I ever did leaving the continent was my holiday in Abu Dhabi. There my friend and I went for a safari experience where in the middle of the dessert: we had a barbecue, did sandsurfing and for 5 Dirhams we rode a camel.
When I was younger me and my father would go on the weekend to the market on the streets in New Dheli. You could see a lot of kids playing football around the streets. My favourite thing to buy with 100 rupees was Samosas in the street food.
When I came to the UK for the first time, it was very surprising to me seeing Poundland for the first time. I could buy anything I wanted for 1 pound, so when I got there I went crazy I choose 5 different snacks and bottled drinks for a fiver.