Noobing it up with Gloria Jean

Sanju had a personal engagement a few days ago, so the compromise to avoid just holing me up in her apartment all day was that I’d hang out at Gloria Jean’s, which is basically a Starbucks.  This is my first experience on my own at any establishment here.  Which makes me sound like an abject noob, but hey, I’d only been here 3 days.

When I got my money to bring here, I got Rs.25,000 from a currency exchange in Chicago (it was in the Thompson Center, paid good rates, and was friendly–recommended).  This was just to hold me over until I could get a bank account up and running.  The guy there very thoughtfully gave me some small bills, but I’ve quickly realized here that the Rs.1,000 notes that comprise the bulk of my Rupee stash are totally useless in 99% of transactions.  A half hour on a rickshaw will cost you Rs.125 or so.  This nice coffee was Rs.95, and parking at a mall is Rs.20 for up to 4 hours.  When I placed a call to Sanju from the airport, they just had phones at a kiosk next to a guy who collected the money.  That call was 2 freaking rupees.  Thank God they’d given me a couple 50 notes, but even that garnered a glare from the phonewala.  Stores here are not nearly as kind about giving change--even a Walgreens equivalent told me they couldn't break my 500.  So an Rs.1,000 note is a chore to break, and I only got so many 100s.

I did get some 500s, though, and I figured Gloria Jean’s would be as good a place as any to break it and replenish the smaller bills.  But when I handed it to him, the guy said “10 Rupees change.”  I didn’t quite get that, since I thought he was telling me how much change I was about to get.  Which would’ve been bogus–I was looking for 405.  But after I got him to repeat himself, I figured he wanted 10 more.  So I handed him one of the 10s I got from the phonewala and got my coffee (only after having him repeat himself twice when he directed me to take a seat outside).  I initially just thought this was a white guy surcharge, or possibly just a noob surcharge.  Maybe a legitimate change charge.  But then it occurred to me that it was a VAT tax, and he just wanted the extra 10 to avoid paying me like 90 rupees in change.  Which confirms that it was a noob surcharge.