BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - After a smooth holiday debut, Europe's new single currency was surviving its first real test Wednesday as stores reopened and people headed back to work with unfamiliar money in their pockets.

Despite some shortages of new euro cash among stores and customers alike, the worst fears of endless queues and angry scenes at cash registers were mostly unfounded.

``It hasn't been too bad,'' said Veronique Patte, manager of the Franprix grocery store near the Champs-Elysees in Paris. ``Customers understand that it isn't easy. It could be a lot worse.''

Even currency traders were impressed by the relatively glitch-free introduction, sending the euro up nearly 2 percent by late afternoon to above 90 cents.

``I can't really see anything that ... could interrupt the optimism towards the euro at the moment,'' Bear Stearns currency analyst Steve Barrow said in London.

Traffic backed up on some bridges and highways as drivers tried to get euros from toll booth attendants. Authorities from Lisbon to Athens appealed to drivers to use exact change.

``Many people who usually pay at the automated booths using credit cards chose to pay in cash just so they could get their hands on the euro for the first time,'' said Giustino Ruggieri, spokesman for Italy's Societa Autostrada.

Lines were longer than usual at some banks and post offices. In Naples, Italy, police were called when retirees waiting for their first euro pensions got unruly. In Athens, Greek Premier Costas Simitis visited five banks and told customers to show patience.

In Austria, some 2,600 ATMs across the country shut down for an hour because of an overload to the central computer. Europay, the company that maintains the machines, denied the breakdown was related to the introduction of the new currency.

And Wednesday saw the first major robberies of euros since the currency was introduced. A man with a gun stole $68,400-worth of euros from a postal savings branch in Athens on Wednesday. In Ireland, three robbers grabbed $1,800 in euros from a bank till after threatening staff with a knife and hammer, while in another town. There have been a number of robberies of euros in storage before the currency's adoption.

Although EU officials reported 80 percent of ATMs across the 12 countries using the euro had been converted by Wednesday, the percentage varied from almost all in Germany to about half in Italy.

Shopkeepers reported the majority of customers were still unloading their old, national currencies.

``It slows us down quite a bit as we give change only in euros,'' said Eeva Ekblom, a waitress at the Cafe Via in Helsinki, Finland. ``But people seem to like the new money.''

National currencies will circulate side by side with the euro for up to two months to help ease the transition, but European Central Bank officials are hoping that most people will use only euros after the first two weeks.

The foot soldiers in the switch are Europe's retailers, who are expected to take in the old and hand out the new in change to help remove national currencies from circulation.

But that wasn't happening everywhere.

``My problem is I don't have enough bills,'' said Mourad Mahoudi, who runs a grocery near the European Union (news - web sites) headquarters in Brussels.

When people came in with 50 euro notes - worth about $44.50 - he was forced to hand out change in Belgian francs, going against the whole spirit of the operation. ``But I hope to get to the bank later in the day,'' he said.

At one Madrid cinema, the cashier insisted on paying back change in pesetas, explaining she was trying to get rid of the old coins too.

The euro became legal tender in 12 EU countries with the dawning of the new year, representing the most dramatic step toward integration in Europe's postwar history.

Most Europeans, however, were less concerned about the grand significance of the change than they were about prices that were bumped up along with it, from subway tickets in Brussels to the libations in a bar in Duesseldorf, Germany.

``That's outrageous!'' one midday customer, who didn't want to give her name, complained about the 10 percent hike in a glass of beer.

Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti warned shoppers to be attentive to the conversions to prevent ``clever'' salespeople from rounding up the prices unfairly.

But the difficulty of doing so was evident when reporters asked Portuguese Finance Minister Guilherme Oliveira Martins to give the escudo equivalent of 100 euros.

``That's ... er ... er ... well, it's going to take some time to get used to it all,'' he replied.

Some stores saw marketing advantages in the confusion.

The big German supermarket chain Aldi rounded prices down, resulting in price cuts averaging 2 to 3 percent - and advertised the move as ``the biggest Aldi price cut of all time.''

Rival Rewe dropped prices on about 250 items and promised it wouldn't raise any prices. ``We'll set our prices in such a way that they are competitive,'' spokesman Wolfgang Schmuck said.

Some minor problems cropped up, such as computer bugs that kept about 200 of the 1,300 post offices in the Netherlands closed Wednesday.

Bank unions in France and Italy tried to stage strikes but drew little support and caused only minor disruptions on the historic day.

``For the moment, knock on wood, it's going over extremely well,'' said French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius.

Overall, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes said things were going even better than expected - although no one was ready to relax yet.

Still to come is the first Saturday shopping rush - when stores normally ring up as much in sales as they did the previous five weekdays.

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