My Thoughts on the UK

We (me, my wife, my mother, sister-in-law, and her husband) recently returned from our two week whirlwind trip to the UK, and I can honestly say that I need a vacation from my vacation. It was what I call a “go go go” vacation that my wife loves and I wonder what just happened after we’re done.

If you’re interested, we flew into London where we took in the sights–Big Ben, Natural History Museum, etc.–made it to Stonehenge for a day (see the one obligatory photo I took of the backside below), then traveled north to Keswick for a few days. We then moved onto Scotland, specifically Inverness, saw the Scottish highlands, took a bus tour to the Isle of Skye, and did some sightseeing on our own, including Edinburgh and Glasgow. After a week, we flew from Glasgow to Dublin and made a giant counterclockwise trip around the island of Ireland before returning to Dublin, hitting the Guinness storehouse tour, and flying home.

Over that time, we got to see much of the UK. But there was so many places to visit that I’m sure we didn’t truly do the country justice. Still, we managed to see and stay many places, including the group consensus as the most beautiful: Killarney, Ireland. That said, the Scottish highlands were fairly remarkable, too.

Three Differences That Stood Out

Although technically a different country, the UK felt familiar since people spoke English and we share similar cultures. That said, there were obvious differences, such as money (they use British Pounds or the Euro) but we mostly used credit cards, so it wasn’t a problem most of the time.

Many phrases are also different. They said things like “mind the steps” for watch your step, “wee” for small (or maybe that was only in Scotland?), “takeaway” for food to-go orders, and “to let,” which I first thought was a sign for toilets only missing the letter “i,” instead of for rent. There were many more differences. Of course, they had accents, too, which was sometimes difficult to understand at times but we managed.

Driving was probably the biggest change of all. Although my sister-in-law’s husband drove the entire time, which I’m glad he did, I was surprised at how different it was even as a passenger. Not only do they drive on the other side of the road (and the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car), their road signs and road markings were quite different, many two-lane roads didn’t have shoulders and were quite narrow, and there were quite a few one-lane roads, but that may be just because of the places we traveled. Honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted to drive in the UK.

Relative Prices (The U.S. Wins?)

I can’t speak to the cost of lodging or tours because my wife doesn’t want me to see the bill, but I can say that almost everything else we encountered was more expensive. Not only did the exchange rate not favor the US Dollar (inflation, anyone?), but the cost of everything else from gasoline (they call it petrol) to souvenirs was quite costly. Gasoline, alone, was easily $7-9 per gallon or more after my rough conversion from liters and British Pounds to gallons and USD. About the only noticeable difference where things were cheaper in the UK was grocery store food. Because we stayed in a few Airbnb’s, we also shopped for groceries, and I can state without a doubt that groceries were half or less of what they cost here in the US, and I have no idea why. But it was a nice change.

The People

Generally speaking, the people were nice. Only once or twice did we encounter people who weren’t entirely pleasant to interact with. That said, city dwellers tended to be like most are … in a hurry. Getting away from the cities was a good choice because people were usually very nice, helpful (when they noticed were we obviously tourists), and they were rarely in a rush … unless they were driving in a roundabout, in which case you should take caution!

There does seem to be some significant differences in cultures, with each major grouping (Britons, Scotts, and Irish) either looking down on the others or largely not interacting with people from those places. At least, this is as much as we gathered as we interacted with the locals. It might be akin to Texans never visiting California or Floridians disliking people from New York. So, I’m trying not to read too much into it, though I suspect there are some deep-seeded feelings lingering.

Regardless, there were so many tourists and non-British people (who are probably citizens?) everywhere we went that it was difficult to get a measure on attitudes and ethnic differences between traditional UK people.

That said, it was disconcerting to go to London, specifically, and not feel like I got the British experience. Gone are the days that you’ll meet a proper British gent or get any sort of “British experience.” I kid you not, within ten or fifteen minutes of touring London on the first day we arrived and we encountered a massive “call to prayer” of what appeared to be Hindu worshippers (I say this because they were all wearing turbans) and speaking a foreign language. There were easily thousands of them. Apparently, it’s common for mass gatherings in this specific place according to one cab driver. Truth be told, the only place we met traditional Brits was in a cab.

The Food Was Better Than I Feared

You should know that I’m not a picky eater, so those with a refined pallet beware. Aside from getting tired of eating fish and chips (breaded fish and fries), I had my share of sausage rolls and pastries. We tried other traditional foods, like Haggis (hard pass) and blood pudding (definitely pass), and more. Most of we ate was fine; some of it was really good; a few items weren’t so good, but those tended to be very traditional foods. Still, we all found stuff we could eat.

Interestingly, many of the sweets weren’t like what I expected, probably because they don’t add loads of sugar like we do. My guess is that they tend to use healthier ingredients, which was nice to see yet depressing because it’s obvious we could do better here in the US, you just don’t realize it until see other’s doing a better job. They also tend not to salt their foods, either.

Last, I noticed they don’t refrigerate their eggs. Aside from one place we went, all their eggs sit out like fruit or root vegetables. But their eggs all look clean and are stamped with a date, so maybe they process their eggs differently than in the States. Even so, my guess is that their cuticle must remain in tact or the eggs would spoil.

Castles, Pubs and Sheep

If you like history, particularly castles, ruins, and stone walls, the UK is the place for you! Truth be told, I got tired of seeing more castles; there were just so many that it was too much by the end.

There are pubs everywhere. Make your way into any town, no matter how big, and there’s a pub or ten. And they all sell Guinness and fish and chips.

Sheep are everywhere, too. They were cute at first, but now I’m fairly certain that they’re just large, wooly rats. (Just kidding! Who doesn’t love to see sheep dotting the countryside?)

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, the trip was fun but exhausting. We did too much, in my opinion. I suspect we’ll never get to go back, so it was an experience we’ll never forget.

If you enjoy nature or history, then I absolutely recommend going. If you want culture, you can probably skip most of the UK; there are pockets of culture for sure, and you’ll occasionally meet interesting locals, but most of the UK, at least of the places we went, were packed with tourists and people who probably weren’t of British ancestry. Of course, if you’re retired and can spend a month or two exploring, then whatever reason you go for may be worth the time and expense.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with one last photo that explains my sense of humor more than anything. It is the only other photo I took on the trip besides of Stonehenge above. (Yes, I literally only snapped two photos, and even that felt like too many since my travelling companions took hundreds, possibly thousands. Ugh.)

For context, we stopped at a gas station in some small town in Ireland where I was confronted with the following, after having spent the entire day prior joking about aliens building some natural phenomenon we saw in Ireland:

Ever been to the UK? What do you think about it?