Scotland, Day 11

Homeward bound again.

I carefully collected Italian coins when I went to Italy, and naturally enough I decided to collect some UK coins in Scotland. I carefully sorted my coins to keep examples of each major minting (not each year, just head/tail combinations).

The US gets along with the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter plus slowly increasing use of dollar coins. Yes, we have $0.50 pieces and a few other oddities but they are rare.

In common circulation the UK has 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, one pound, and two pound coins. They do not use one pound notes – the smallest paper money is a five. Paper notes, BTW, are not only issued by multiple mints but given distinctly different appearances by those mints. The Banks of England, Scotland, and Wales all issue currency. I expect this accounts for some of the variety in coins, as well. All the currency I took over was Bank of England, but much (though not all) of the paper change I got was Bank of Scotland. Anyway, back to coins.

The US has state (and now territory and national park) quarters.

In the UK I collected 31 different one pound coins, ignoring year marks.

The one pound coin is a solid hunk of metal – about the same diameter as a quarter but twice as thick. It is, notably, thick enough that they print words on the edge. This process must be at a different stage than the stamping, however, since the text shows up both ‘right side up’ and ‘upside down’ relative to the obverse/reverse. Three different faces are in use (all of Queen Elizabeth, just different portraits) and over a dozen different backs; about half of these had multiple faces, indicating a long minting history.

I bought two bottles of whiskey at the duty-free store, brining my total inbound load to just under four liters in eighteen containers. Yes, I declared it at US customs.

While at Heathrow I also saw my first A380 in person. I admit to prejudice, but they look like big ugly birds to me. The 747 which carried me back to Seattle is a much prettier aircraft.

British Airways served a tasty meal and 'high tea' on the return leg, which according to departure and arrival times was only an hour long. Ah, the fun of time zones. I managed to watch several movies in that hour.

Speaking of US Customs, three uniformed and two plainclothes CBP officers (granted, the latter could have been anything from local detectives to FBI – I can’t read plainclothes THAT well) were waiting on the jetway for the flight. A wall of uniforms at the official “border” I expected (and got), but five LEOs on the jetway makes me think something unusual was going on. What, I will probably never know. Entry into the US involved more paperwork than entry into the UK but no questions at all (OK, returning citizen vs. entering foreigner – I still expected more hassle on the US end). It seems reasonable to conclude that whatever caused five cops on the jetway had the rest of the CBP focusing on other things too, and uninterested in me.

All in all it was a marvelous trip. Not flawless, to be sure, but if I was offered the chance to do it all over again, flaws included, I would.

What more can one say?

Thank you Scotland for bagpipes, whiskey, dancing, and just being a blast in general.