Exchange Rates and Amsterdam Falafel

I was sitting my hotel room in Berlin last week, watching BBC World, when the news turned to the American economy. The gist of it was: because the dollar's so weak, we're screwed. I'm not an economist, but I've never quite understood why I'm supposed to be so upset about this. As a tourist I'm screwed, certainly--I was Rome about five years ago, back when you could by a Euro for 85 cents, and it was pretty great. Now they cost $1.55, which means I paid more for my sweet new pair of blue sueded Adidas Spezials than I 'd like to admit. But it's not like the weak dollar has had the same effect on prices here, where I live and spend most of my money. There are ways of measuring such things, after all. 

But no, the BBC announcer assured me that things were going to hell in handbasket in America even as I sat there. As evidence of this, they cut to a reporter standing outside an American store. Things have gotten so bad, he intoned, that some U.S. stores, like this one, are now accepting Euros as payment! Cue ominous music! He walked inside, camera tight on his shoulder, and went up to the counter with his twenty-Euro note to buy...falafel. At Amsterdam Falafel, in Adam's Morgan, here in DC, where I've eaten probably 15 or 20 times. Small world. 

So last night my wife and I are deciding where to have dinner before going to a play (Stunning, at the Woolly Mammoth Theater, it derails a little in the last act but is otherwise quite good), and I've got a ten-Euro note left over in my wallet, so we decide to give this whole mixed currency thing a try. And sure enough, they guy behind the counter happily accepted it and gave me the going exchange rate, which ended paying for almost the whole meal. 

But I still don't understand what this is supposed to mean or why it's a signal or function of the weak dollar. At any given moment, the exchange rate is what it is. From my perspective, the only advantage of buying falafel with Euros is that I got a better deal, in terms of the exchange rate and lack of commission, than if I'd taken my Euros to the Travelex on K Street. But that doesn't have anything to do with the value of the dollar relative to the Euro, it would have been just as true back when the dollar was strong. If the owners of Amsterdam Falafel want to accumulate Euros as a means of betting that the dollar will become even weaker, there are surely easier ways to do it. There can't be that many people walking around DC with Euros in their pocket making spending decisions based on who'll take their foreign currency. It was obviously a fantastic publicity coup, but other than that, I'm puzzled.