Give to Weasel what is Weasel’s

One thing that’s taking a bit of getting used to here in Malta is the money. The Maltese currency is the Lira, like in Italy, but they often call it a Pound, like in England. It’s abbreviated LM for Lira Malti, and its value is hovering around 3USD. That’s an easy enough conversion most of the time, but it’s still hard to get a grasp on the value of things.

For the most part, things are worth the same, and the price just looks 1/3 of what we’d pay back home. But then there are certain things that cost more in other parts of the world and it’s hard to compare the value while trying to do conversions of pounds to dollars and liters to gallons at the same time. Like gasoline - it’s a significantly more expensive than in San Jose right now, just don’t ask me for a comparison.

Actually the most difficult thing to grasp is the value of the coinage. Even a one cent coin in Malta is worth more like a nickel in the States. It’s easy to throw around coins because I never feel like they’re worth much, but a fifty cent piece (LM) is actually a buck and a half (USD). And forget famous presidents or national monuments on the coins… we got a weasel! Here’s the low down:

1c – A weasel.
2c – An olive branch.
5c – A crab.
10c – A fish, lampuka to be exact.
25c – A flower called Ghirlanda.
50c – A plant called Tulliera (which is a beautiful name for a weed known as Fleabane or False Yellow Head in the States).
1p – The national bird, a Merrill
Then the paper money – There are 2, 5, and 10 pound notes, which are simply pink, blue, and green versions of the same design, each slightly different sizes.

There’s another snapshot of life in Malta for you.