When friends from home find out you moved to Luxembourg, they do a little Googling and invariably say “oh, rich country, you must have a Ferrari now,” and you’re like, “uh, yeah.”
Everything is good, your ego is fat, and your reputation back home is secure until your friends announce plans to visit. You look at your small apartment, your second-hand Opel that can’t pass inspection at Contrôle Technique, and your chipped Ikea plate set, and you’re like, “oh crap.”
Don’t worry. Here are four easy, no-cost ways to seem rich even when you’re not.
Transport
Get a part-time job as a taxi driver. Many Luxembourg taxi companies have nice Mercedes or even Teslas. Make sure your training period begins the same day your friends arrive. You’ll be training with an experienced driver, which means he drives and you watch from the passenger seat. You now get to go around all day in a sweet luxury sedan, and your friends will think the driver is your chauffeur.
Lodging
By law, all visiting royals get to sleep at the Grand Ducal Palace – or so one would assume. Yet who can keep track of all the countries of the world, let alone all the princesses, barons, empresses, and sultans? Make up the name of a country, say, West Pratobia, and tell the guard at the palace that you are the archduke or archduchess, as the case may be. This should go over well because Luxembourg has a grand duke, and dukes like to stick together. Now you have a nice place to crash and so do your friends. If anyone asks, explain they are your servants. If your “servants” forget to call you “your highness,” kick them in the shins.
Food
Everyone knows that as soon as you become rich, your eating habits immediately change, and instead of enjoying proper, full plates of food, you start eating like a picky bird, only nipping at small amounts. This is perfect since you haven’t got much of a budget for food anyway. Instead of serving your friends a whole pizza, cut one slice into 20 thin strips. Put one strip in your mouth, and say, “mmm, white truffle pizzarettas.” Since your friends won’t know what truffles taste like anyway, and they’ll be too embarrassed to ask what a pizzaretta is, they’ll just assume what they’re eating is gourmet.
Entertainment
What do rich people do for fun? Exactly. No one knows, which is why it will be very easy to convince your friends that your low-budget thrills are actually the preferred leisure activities of the upper-upper classes of Luxembourg. Cow watching, tap-water tasting, and competitive staring – no matter how simple it seems, just say “it’s something rich people here like to do,” and add something about how all rich families in Luxembourg were turnip farmers just two generations ago.
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Originally published by RTL Today on November 18, 2021
