My wife brought about 5k in Euro home from a recent overseas trip, a gift from her mother. Now we face the task of converting them into USD without being skinned by the ridiculous exchange rate spread. It's weird - the buy/sell spread when you trade currencies as commodities is miniscule, but when you trade the physical currency, it balloons up to about 10%!

Any recommendations out there (aside from holding on to them and spending them in Europe in the future) for an institution that will convert these at a much lower rate?