Money

Apparently, Amman is the second most expensive city in the region, behind only Dubai. I guess expensive is relative, though. It’s pretty amazing how cheap some stuff is here. Jordan’s currency is the dinar (JD) and one dollar is about equal to about .7 dinars. The cent here is called the piaster or kirsh. One interesting thing is that there is a vestigial decimal to indicate the fil, which is 1/1000 of a dinar, so something that is 35 piaster is listed as .350 JD. Sales tax here is a lot higher though.

Food here is by far cheaper than in America. The exception to that is American fast food places, which are about the same, if not a little more than they are back home. There’s a Subway a couple blocks down from our apartment, which I've gone to a few times. A foot-long sub there comes out to about six dollars. Luckily they were passing out discount cards at the university and I grabbed a bunch, though the employees there seem to think it’s more like a VIP card so they never collect them. Hopefully they’ll accept them back home, since I eat at Subway a lot. The cheapest food is the bread, a pound of which can be bought for twenty-five piaster. The markets are really cheap too. Some really nice clothes and shoes can be had for less than ten dinar, though they are often used.

Consequently, change is a lot more valuable here than in America. To make using the change a bit easier, Jordanian coins are much bigger and sturdier than American coins. Dimes are bigger than nickels, and there’s a half-dinar coin. Best of all, nobody uses pennies, though I have gotten a few from our local supermarket.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Egypt and may not have internet access until the 19th.