Canadians call it a "buggy", not a shopping cart. I have no idea why.
Here are a few things about Canadian money. Some of these you may know, but they still interest me:
- Canada has a $1 coin, colloquially called a "Loonie" because it has a loon (the bird) on the back. It is slightly larger than a quarter, and is gold in color making it relatively easy to distinguish in a handful of change (unless you're blind, I suspect). Why the US $1 coin has not caught on I don't know. Probably something to do with merchants not having space in their cash registers for them.
- They also have a $2 coin, called a "toonie". It's larger than a loonie and has a gold center surrounded by a silver outer ring. Again, it's pretty easy to distinguish from other coins.
- Oddly, as an American, the hardest thing about Canadian currency is telling quarters and nickels apart. They are similar in size, and since the art on them is not what I am used to, I actually have to look closely and think about it. Someday that should be easy, but a month of rarely using cash is not long enough to get me to that point.
- Canadians don't use pennies. They are still legal tender, but you can only deposit them in bank accounts. Merchants round things to the nearest nickel when dealing with cash. The US should have done that a long time ago.
- Another oddity is getting a large amount of change but no bills. Imagine you pay for something costing $1.21 with a $5 bill and getting $3.80 back in change: 1 toonie, 1 loonie, 3 quarters, and 1 nickel. No bills. (And note the rounding down to $1.20 on the cost.) That pile of change still doesn't feel right.
- When paying with something inexpensive with cash I still look for $1 bills in my wallet. Every time. I might have 15 loonies in my pocket, but I don't think about them yet.
- Canadian bills have lots of color and transparent plastic in them. They are much prettier than American bills, in my opinion.
