You’ve heard the phrase, “And the moral of the story is…” plenty of times. In this recount of my Edinburgh trip, I’ll share morals that I actually already knew, but because I’m still young, I’ll use it as an excuse for not keeping them in mind. Join me for some laughs along the way and pictures at the end!
The first moral of this story is “Pack the night before you leave.” Although I didn’t have much to pack on Saturday morning, I packed very slowly and was a bit lethargic since it was 5:45AM. But, all was well and I caught a bus to the station within a reasonable amount of time. The second moral of this story is one that your family told you over and over again as a kid, “Before the trip, go use the bathroom.” I arrived at the bus station, with time to spare, but had to use the bathroom. When I walked to the sign indicating the location of the bathroom, I was shocked to see that it had “opening hours” and on that day, it opened at 7:15AM. It was still 6ish and I thought to myself how irrational it was to have a bathroom closed for extended periods of time in a station where buses ran at all time.
Rather than complain, I simply waited for the Megabus to arrive and it actually did in a timely manner. As with all trips, I slept, and when I arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, I had no problems taking an Uber from the station to the hostel. It was my first time staying in one and it was actually pretty dope. After my friend from Cornell arrived, we spent a couple of hours chit chatting and catching up then set out on a journey for grub. We stuffed our faces with fried food and tried haggis balls for the first time. They’re actually not as bad as they sound.
We spent the rest of the night thriving in the nightlife as we were guided on a pub crawl and actually met some fellow Americans who joined us in all the fun. Just like us, they were studying abroad and enjoying their weekend trip in Scotland’s capital. The night was full of live entertainment; as bands played music on stage, we laughed out loud, sang along to the songs, cheered and danced, skipped merrily and pranced!
During our last stop, we entered a club where within minutes I was approached by a guy who asked, “Do you go to Cornell?” After replying with a yes, his follow up question was, “Are you Keandra?” And from there the guy introduced himself as another Cornell exchange student who was actually there with fellow Cornellians. What are the odds? Traveling to the same city the same weekend and being in the same club at the same time! (If you actually calculate this, let me know and I’ll give you a shout out in my next blog post.) And so I partied the night away with my new Cornellian and American acquaintances without a care in the world. It was all smiles until we left the club.
At about 3AM as I left the club with my friend, I saw a crowd of people. My assumption was that there was a fight. And my assumption was correct, partially. I’ve seen guys brawl a handful of times, but there were two girls fighting in the street. Both of them were on the ground in 5-inch heels, miniskirts, yanking each other’s hair out, screaming to the top of their lungs. It was like World Star Scotland. But I don’t believe in promoting violence so I simply walked away with my friend. With this being said, I guess one moral could be, “If you’re going to brawl, at least put your hair in a ponytail.”
Despite the ruckus, my friend and I safely returned to our hostel for a peaceful night of sleep. We rose in the morning to catch a tour of Edinburgh that included learning about Scotland’s history, famous figures, how some idioms came to be, archaic social norms, and so much more. We took the rest of the day to grab some grub, window shop, and walk through the snow-covered cobble-stone streets. Edinburgh became a winter wonderland as the snow gently fell and blanketed the city. While walking, I passed by many celebratory signs that caught my attention…they were all for the holiday “Mother’s Day.” For a split second I stood in place and asked myself, “Did I forget Mother’s Day?!” I didn’t. Apparently in the UK, Mother’s Day is held on the fourth Sunday of Lent as opposed to the US which celebrates it on the second Sunday in May. As the day ended and the evening began, my friend and I walked back to our hostel and shared some good conversation and some good laughs. I hugged her goodbye when my Uber arrived and I could end this blog post on this sentimental note but alas, me being me, I feel compelled to tell you all the little details; so here’s what happened during my trip from Edinburgh back to Manchester.
I safely arrived at the bus station, with time to spare. But here is where we shall revisit the second moral of this story, “Before the trip, go use the bathroom.” I hadn’t done so, but I quickly found the bathroom and the sign indicated that females should enter through the left door…but two glass panes were awkwardly placed near it. With luggage in hand, I pressed my body against one of the panes and it didn’t budge and so I did it again. A man directed his speech at me and informed me that I had to pay if I wanted to use the bathroom. WHAT? Apparently the panes only open if you put money into the adjacent machine. I was in awe! I just walked away, not even glancing at the price. I was on a budget, and this point matters later in the story too. For the next 15ish minutes, I sat in one seat, in one position, until my bus came. As soon as I hopped on, you already know the first place I went. Feeling relieved, I sat in my seat and slept my way back to Manchester. But I have 3 more morals to share with you. (Bear with me or you can Ctrl-Alt-Delete.)
I arrived at the station at about 3:45AM. You may be wondering, “Keandra, why would you pick such an odd time to be back in Manchester?” Well, in my “Mishaps” post, I mentioned that I struggled to find a one-way ticket back to Manchester. I still wanted to enjoy my Sunday but not miss class on Monday. (I’m such a good student *halo shines above head*) As I stood in the station, I resorted to my Uber app as always, but I couldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi and although I have an unlimited data plan, I still couldn’t connect. Also, my phone was dying. And here I will say the moral is “Keep your phone charged while traveling.” Seems simple, but I didn’t expect my battery to deplete that quickly.
But, there was a moment of hope! When I stood in one specific spot, all my app notification started popping up and in that moment, I knew, I had a connection. But awkwardly enough, the very spot in which I stood happened to be a bit too close to the automatic doors. So, in the minutes I spent trying to get an Uber, the doors continuously opened and closed and opened and closed…I am the last person who wants to draw attention to myself in a bus station at 4AM and with that being said, I ended up going on a search for an outlet because my phone had reached 5%. When I saw one, I did a little “Yay!” inside my head. I quickly retrieved my phone charger but then had to search for my converter because UK outlets vary from US outlets. I eventually found it and did another little “Yay!” inside my head. But my celebratory yays were premature. I plugged it in waiting for my phone screen to light up like a movie character’s face glowing, hit with rays of sunshine from Heaven after doing a good deed…but turns out the outlet didn’t work. WATT IN THE WORLD? But, luckily, the next outlet I found worked perfectly. I sat, became connected to Wi-Fi, and called a cab from a company that my mentor had suggested to me via email a while back. (Major moral: always store cab company phone numbers!)
I hopped in the cab and he drove me home. One last moral to this story coming. He parked the car, looked back at me, and told me the price. I pulled out my debit card and he said, “Cash only.” And here comes the sub story. I am attempting to be a responsible growing adult and made a budget for Edinburgh. I spent the cash I brought and after reaching that limit, only had a pound and some pence left. This is also why I wanted to use Uber because it’s card-based. The moral of this part of the story is “Always have (enough) cash.” He drove me to the closest ATM. For a reason unknown to me, Manchester seems to have infinitely many metal barriers about 4-feet tall on the street corners and I’m not sure if they are meant to deter jaywalking or to prevent drunk people from falling into intersections, but whatever the case may be, it was after 4AM and I did not have time for barriers. I was already outside the cab and rather than walk all the way down and around the barrier, or hop back in the cab to ask if he could drive down further, I decided to accomplish the task of getting to the ATM in the quickest way possible: hop. When I say hop, I could also use flop, because in actuality, that’s more of what it was. Although I was eager, I was tired and just kind of threw myself over. But hey, I got the cash, flopped back over to get into the cab, thanked the man and paid him. He actually said to me, “You’re quite the hurdler.” I just smirked, grabbed my bag, and shut the door. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny. If that was hurdling, then I would have changed the game in terms of college track & field walk-on standards.
Nonetheless, I safely walked back to my dorm room and slept peacefully after an eventful, moral-filled weekend in Edinburgh.
Tea With Kea 