Last Notes about England

I. Currency

I didn't realize until I was in Northern Ireland last year that each part of the U.K. prints its own currency. So in Northern Ireland you get bills issued by the Bank of Ireland; in England, by the Bank of England. They're all British pounds, they're all worth the same thing and interchangeable, but they have different words and pictures on them. Here's a picture I took last year to prove that:


The weird thing (well, weirder than having many different versions of your currency) is that most shops in England won't accept the ones from Northern Ireland! This time around, I did manage to spend my leftover Northern Irish pounds eventually, but not before I got a few strange looks and "Sorry, we can't accept those."

One shopkeeper even examined the bill, brow furrowed, and said he thought it might actually be from the Republic of Ireland. (Unlikely at best, since Ireland uses the euro.)

It's a strange state of affairs. As Dave, my Northern Irish friend and host in Brighton, put it, people in Northern Ireland "are shooting each other over the right to use the pound" [i.e. to be part of the United Kingdom] and then you can't even spend it anywhere.


II. The North-South Divide

At a barbecue with my friend Peter and is neighbors in Southampton, Gabor, who's from Hungary and was the only other foreigner there besides me, explained that people from the north and south of England each have strongly-held stereotypes about each other. "Like what?" I asked.

"Like that they just wear T-shirts, even in the winter," said one of the Brits. (All present were southerners.)

Jenny from next door considered, then added, "Except that's actually true."

"See?" Gabor said.


III. Cheek Kisses

The English, at least in my limited observation, often give each other just a single kiss on one cheek.

When you mix this together with Germans (two cheek kisses, one on either side) and Swiss (three kisses, one on either side then back again) and Americans (who are generally just bumbling around trying to do whatever everyone else is doing) things can get interesting!