Write What You Know...

I was looking for some photos to demonstrate a new JavaScript lightbox slideshow widget I wrote at work, and came across my scans of Emirati notes. Perfect! So, here it is:

Emirati Money

These are scans of the available denominations of Emirati notes.  The unit of currency in the United Arab Emirates is the dirham.  There is no one dirham note; one dirhams come only in coins.  A dirham is worth a little more than 27 cents.

You can see it in the context of our website here, where it works much better. (Blogger apparently doesn't like you to include JavaScript and styles within a blog post.)

What does a trillion dollars look like?

A visual demonstration

Money Exchange

Emirates Today has a story about Russians with large amounts of cash. This reminds me of the first time I went to one of the many money changers here.

My first morning here in Al Ain, I changed about $40 into dirhams at the hotel, then went out to look around the city. After a while, I caught a cab to Al Ain Mall and stopped at on exchange next to Mega Mart to swap the rest of my dollars. There were a group of five or six men standing at the counter, so I got in line behind them. One of the men was talking to the clerk very loudly and heatedly. (I recognized now that it was just haggling, but the man seemed genuinely angry to me then.) After going back and forth for a few minutes, the man nodded, slapped the counter and gestured for one of the other men to step up. He took a bag off his shoulder and unzipped it and started laying huge stacks of $20 bills on the counter.

I have no idea how much money they exchanged, but it had to have been nearly $100,000. The clerk even made some joke to them about it being mafia money. They then left and I felt really silly turning in my $200 for dirhams after that.