Chapter 11 - Question 5 - Dajanka

I really enjoyed reading this chapter. The American economy is very interesting but being citizen of a european country I really enjoyed hearing about England, Japan, China, Mexico, and other smaller states and their economy.
The part that I could most relate to was the one about PPP and how much of a difference it makes to buy a meal in a country with a strong or weak currency. I am not sure if people from the US experience this a lot. The USA is bigger than the whole of Europe and thus people do not really experience different standards of living. If you travel from NewYork to Minneapolis, hamburger there and here costs pretty much the same. Unless you are traveling outside the USA often you cannot really experience how big a difference currency actually makes.
If I were asked to define the nature of my family, I would definitely say that we are travellers.  We travel a lot all over the world, usually not picking standard destinations. (If you ask people what their dream destination is most of them answer Greece, Italy, or England vs Spain, France, or China.) A few years ago we decided to travel to Macedonia and Albania , countries with very weak currency. With rent a small well-equipped house for thirty dollars per night. Cotton candy sold on the street cost me about five cents and family dinner in a restaurant with view on the sea cost about seventeen dollars. The same year we traveled to Moscow. Our family rented two rooms in a student hostel. Rooms were narrow and only equipped with beds. My parents never told me how much it cost. They felt guilty about spending too much.  However, it was not hard to figure out that Moscow is a super expensive city. 0,5l of super salty water cost me around four dollars and a bread in the grocery store about seven. To have a family dinner in the city was a dream not speaking about luxuries like candy or hot chocolate at the end of the day. I remember taking a train to the airport at the end of our trip: seventy dollars for a ten mile ride.
Thats how much difference currency makes.