Outdated Currency? Doggone it!

I married a traveler. I should have known better because I met Art when he was in the Air Force. He'd graduated from a university in Illinois. His sister went to a university in the Midwest. In fact, their father even went to an Engineering college in Wisconsin before a ruptured appendix sent him sadly home. They're from the Big Island.

I didn't leave the islands until my Junior year at the University of Hawaii when I visited my grandparents and other relatives in Japan for the first time with a college tour. 

So of course, Art took a job in Chicago a year after we married. Once the kids were older, Art decided we should venture overseas and explore the world. He chose England since ... well... they speak English there. 😁 Our neighbor in Illinois was also from England so he was very happy we'd be visiting his home country. This was in 1991!

I was not happy or excited. I was nervous. Would they be prejudiced there? Would we know how to get around? What should we pack? 

Art? Nope, not worried at all. He figured he already knew how to take the subway system from going to work on Chicago's "L" system. He also felt he could figure out how to drive on the other side of the street. Yikes! 😬

There were a few glitches. Art signed on to give up our flight because it was overbooked. However they didn't need our 4 spaces and said we could still go on the same flight. However, our Economy seats were now taken so they said they'd put us in Business Class. That had us worried.

What's Business Class? 

Art went up to ask if this would be a downgrade. The attendant smiled and said, "Trust me, sir. You will love it." And we really did.

And yes, Art took us everywhere and even drove on the opposite side without too much of a problem. We even went to Wales and saw a huge medieval castle called Caerphilly. It was truly amazing! 

Everywhere we went, people were friendly, helpful and kind. After exploring Wales and Bath and imagining the lords and ladies who often sauntered through the streets, not to mention the Romans who created the baths there, we headed back to London.

The kids were pretty tired by then. They pretty much slept through the musical, Cats but stayed awake for Starlight Express.

Oh dear! I was going to just write about British currency and got carried away.

Please forgive me.

Art and I are planning to go on a trip to England and remembered that we'd had some left over British currency. Yup. We found it! We had 285 £. 

Awesome!

But that's when we discovered those bank notes were withdrawn.

What?!?

Withdrawn?!?

The money won't be accepted?

How can that be? We can use our American money forever, right?

I don't know, but it seems like we can.

Art looked it up.

Yup. Our British sterling pound notes were withdrawn.

Apparently there are different series of bank notes. We have series D.

The English are now on series G.

Sigh...

We were told that you could go to a Bank of England in London to exchange them for series G, BUT there will be long lines. There's also no close Bank of Englands  nearby where we are staying. You mean they don't have banks all over the place like we do?

Arrghhh... 😖

Ah well... Art looked it up and we can mail our bank notes to the Bank of England in England and they will electronically send the pounds to our bank.

Lesson here: Don't save overseas money.

And did we take our kids back to England? Nope. The next trip was to Rome. 😄