Scotland Part Two

So we last left off in the bus stop at the Glasgow airport... After standing in the cold for about 35 minutes, laughing at our travels thus far, a two-tiered bus appeared, exactly as Dan had described it. We each paid five pounds and headed to the second tier. At this point it was pitch black outside, and Scotland doesn't waste money on street lights, so it was difficult to see where we were going. However, we were still excited, and our enthusiasm carried us right past any doubts about that 25 minute mark passing.

Yep...it passed. We were on that bus for about an hour and a half. Shit. We thought something was amiss, but we did continue to see the random sign here or there for the city centre, so we felt okay. Finally, after asking the bus driver what to do, he let us off at Buchanan Street in the centre of Glasgow. At this point we were starting to get nervous, since it was almost 8:15pm (beginning hour eight of travel) and we thought we were really far from St. Andrew's. We headed to Central Station, ran in and cornered some security guards, begging them for information. We were met with laughs and exchanged dubious glances. They quickly filled us in: we were idiots. We were probably not going to get to St. Andrew's that night. We were "VERY" far. Why did we even fly into Glasgow?

Great. Thanks for the confidence booster, boys. So, with tears almost overflowing, I asked them "WHAT DO WE DO?!" One of the nicer men, with an accent that we could sort of understand, instructed us that there was an 8:30 train out of Queens St. station, a 5-minute walk. We thanked them and started to speed walk. Out the door, make a right, to the end of the street, make a left, then another right, then another left. Queen's street. Excellent. Into line and bought a ticket to Edinburgh - only 19 pounds, sweet.

We even had time to grab a coffee (much-needed), before going through the turnstile and positioning ourselves at platform 3. We had chosen platform 3 since there was a 3 on our ticket, and it had been partially confirmed by a Scottish-accented attendant. We were sitting there, determined to be the first ones on the train, when we realized it was 8:29 and there was no train. Weird. As we started to freak out once again, a boy our age approached and asked if he could "join us." Since it took so long to understand exactly what he said, once we did, we invited him to sit. It was a great choice, since his next move was to pull out a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels and a 12 packs of mini-Cokes.

Now, let me interject, if this Jack and Coke had not been clearly sent from God, I would not have drinken it. However, this boy was a blatant angel, so who was I to pass up this little blessing? I couldn't. Grabbing the bottle and opening it (ensuring it had not been tampered with...), I cracked some Cokes and went to town. After about five minutes, I checked the time again, wondering where the hell our train was. I asked Tara if she would be so kind as to inquire as to the whereabouts of our train, and she obliged.

Two seconds later, as I sat there draining the last dregs of Coke, I see Tara sprinting toward me, full-tilt -- "PLATFORM SIX, PLATFORM SIX!" Oh no, she didn't. Yes, folks. We had missed our train. We had missed it, when it was about twenty feet behind us. We had missed it because we were not paying attention. The three on the ticket meant nothing. Awesome.

Still in high spirits, we laughed instead of cried, and asked a security guard what we should do. He mentioned that the next train heading that way was coming along in 30 minutes and we could use our same ticket. Excellent. We bid adieu to our friend, bought some playing cards and cemented our feet to platform 6. Aaaand, would you believe, the train pulled in at five to nine and pulled out again on time.

This was when our luck changed. We had time on our first train (about an hour) to play some great games of Rummy and make friends with a train attendant (Roger), who sold us train tickets for our connection, and also told us that he would ensure we got off at the correct stop (he literally got off the train and pointed to the stairs we had to take...haha). In Edinburgh, we had time to grab a slice of pizza and some bottles of wine before hopping our last train of the night to Leuchars. At around 11:55pm, we pulled into our last stop, only one taxi cab away from Dan and Micah's loving arms. Phew.

The cab ride only took ten minutes, and we were bursting with excitement. We were finally there!! Although St. Andrew's was dark and deserted at this point, there was a definite majesty about the place, an impressive feeling...