Adjustment to Stamps, Currency, Electricity

Adjusting to the stamps and postal system of the UK was one of the easier adjustments. We thought the stamps were beautiful, and the postal system was very efficient. One of our favorites of the stamps was the red stamp which depicted the Caernarvon Castle, just down the road from Bangor. We had visited tha castle several times and identified with it.

A platform ticket displays the name of a village on Anglesey about 15 miles from us in Beaumaris. Claiming to have the longest town name in the world, they made sure all of it got on the ticket, and it was printed across the top of the railway station there.

The name and its translation from Welsh:

LLANFAIR PWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH

The church of St Mary in a hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and St. Tysilio's church near to a red cave

Adjusting to the currency was a good bit more difficult. We had to adapt to shillings and pence, and crowns - this was before the decimal conversions. Shown in the background above are pound notes with threepenny pieces, or "thrupnys" as it sounded in speech.

Dealing with the electrical system in Wales made us very appreciative of our simple 120 volt standard U.S. plugs like that in center. With the 250 volt, 50 Hz British system you had large, unwieldy plugs and adapters and they were a continual pain.

Rod changes out a plug on an appliance which we had decided to use in a different place, where there was a different style of receptacle. You had large round three-prong plugs, large rectangular three-prongs, small round two prongs, and variations.