No, not the TM kind, the Dutch kind. One of the curiosities of living in the Netherlands for me has been the fact that whenever you go into a store and buy something that costs, say, 8 Euros, 88 centimes, they give you change as if it cost 8 Euros 90 centimes. If you buy something that costs 8 Euros 91 centimes, they give you change as if it cost 8 Euros 90 centimes. Sometimes you "win," and sometimes you "lose," but it all averages out in the end.
I've actually always appreciated this, and not having to carry around or deal with all those 1 and 2 centime coins, but until today I never knew why they did this and where it came from. Today a Dutch friend explained it to me -- it's a remnant of Dutch culture from the past, since before they became part of the EU and converted from Guilders to the Euro. It seems that back when they used Guidlers, someone discovered that the copper used to make the tiny coins that were the counterparts of 1 and 2 centime pieces in Euros was actually worth more than the coins' face value. So, being the pragmatic people that the Dutch are, they just stopped using them, and started "rounding up" and "rounding down" instead. They continued doing this when they converted to Euros. Curious, but just another example of their pragmatic nature. Pity Maharishi didn't pick up more of it while living here.
