On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLBD/BGM/SVM/SGM wrote:
> Lemme guess, going out on a date is a lot cheaper in the US than it is in
> The Netherlands.
>
> For comparison, a three-course meal and a few drinks in a reasonably good
> restaurant will easily set you back NLG 50 per person. A ticket to a movie
> theatre goes for about NLG 16 a piece.
>
> So, dinner & movie for two will easily cost you some NLG 125-150. How much
> would a similar date cost me in the US?
Well, drinking tends to inflate the cost of any outing pretty quickly.
Let's see if I can come up with a good comparison.
Saturday night Keisha and I went to a good restaurant and a movie.
(Honest!) We dressed nicely, went downtown, and ate sushi and tempura at
a popular Japanese restaurant. We drank tea, so there was no alchohol on
the bill. We then took a break from the date to go house-sit some cats of
some friends who were out of town, and afterwards we saw a movie (the
restored version of Monty Python's Holy Grail).
In US dollars dinner for two was about $45 and the movie was $15. So, we
spent a total of $60. If we had each had one drink, the total would have
been $10-15 dollars more, probably.
Then Sunday night (it was a partyin' kind of weekend) we went to a music
club downtown and saw a performance by Guy Forsyth (my hero) and his band.
Admission is cheaper than usual on Sunday, so cover charges were only $14
for the two of us, and we spend about $15 on drinks and tips (Shiner Bock
was on sale for $2/pint). We were in the club from 8:30 pm to 1:15 am
roughly, so that's a lot of fun for a measly $30.
Now, if only I could pay someone to make my hangover go away (I did
all the drinking--Keisha just ogled Guy's tatoo)....
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
"The ego that sees a 'thou' is fundamentally different from an ego that
sees an 'it.'" -- Joseph Campbell
