traveling with only the use of public transportation is a very different experience for me. i love road trips with my own car, when i am in full control of when the wheels leave and when the wheels stop. i don’t control buses or trains and have no resume in this whole transit world. kristen and i knew we wanted to visit st. andrews, a town about ninety kilometres north of edinburgh. a blog reader [who told me about the town] suggested we take the train: she named the station, where we’d need to get a cab at the other end, everything. perfect. except i decided to google for a little more information [i have a hard time fully trusting the first answer is the best answer.] i stumbled upon an eHow page called getting to st. andrews from edinburgh. bingo.

eHow.com outlined the costs of traveling for one person in a taxi, bus or train. overwhelmingly, the bus seemed to be the cheapest option: ten pounds round-trip & passengers are dropped right in the heart of the city. i didn’t study the options too closely; i simply saw bus, cheaper, takes an hour longer, who cares, we like driving and if we can save money, the bus it was. we wake up on our “st. andrews day” and cab ten minutes to the bus station. we are there early [so prepared and responsible] and we use the little change machine to get our ticket money ready. it’s all so exciting, this transit stuff.

we pick seats at the very, very back of the bus. that’s what the cool kids do in the movies, right? ten minutes into the trip, we discover this is a bad idea. feels like a roller coaster. we move halfway up the bus and within ten minutes, kristen is out like a light–asleep, AGAIN. what do i have to do to get a travel buddy that stays awake?! caffeine pills, maybe. my legs are so short that only the balls of my feet touch the ground so with every jerk of the bus, my silky skirt causes me to slide farther down the vinyl seats. i try to push myself up with the tips of my toes, but this gets tiring after an hour.

an hour and a half into the ride, kristen stirs. hey. kristen. you up? look around this bus. we are the only people under sixty on board. — hah. so true. only retired people have enough time in their day to spend three hours riding a bus to a destination an hour away. — perfect. just the retirees and us, it is. we arrived in st. andrews without any major problems [except the already noted silky skirt/vinyl seat & chronically-sleeping travel buddy] and enjoyed our day. let’s fast forward to the exciting part of this…

because of my intense online study of the bus schedule the day before, i knew we wanted the x58 bus at 7:45pm. we arrived early [we try! we do!] at 7:15pm and waited half an hour on the station floor. the x59 bus arrives [not the x58!] we ask the bus driver about our bus to edinburgh. umm. it’s coming. — uhh, k thanks for that. 8 o’ clock comes. we must have missed it… but how did we miss it? we’ve been obsessively checking every bus since seven o’ clock! we decided that was the bus and that lady had no idea what she was talking about. okay, fine. i check my schedule, another bus is coming at 8:45pm.

we sit back down on the station floor [professional wait-ers by this point, close to an hour and a half going strong.] i feel like we’re catching a flight. i start pacing the station, checking bus route maps and posters and the screen above. i see two times for edinburgh, 8:33 and 8:53. perfect! kristen, 8:33 it is! i thought it was odd that my trusty schedule didn’t mark either of those times–but the screen don’t lie. and if that doesn’t come, the 8:45 will do! more talking, pacing, people-watching, 30-pence bathroom breaks.

8:37pm. i jump up from my seat with a sudden intensity. ohhh no. ohhh no. oh no no no. i’m back at the two bus screens before kristen can say a word. below the right-hand screen was a printed piece of paper with the words “train schedule” and an arrow… the 8:33 and 8:53 “buses” were trains. in the same brain wave of clarity, i check my bus schedule. the 8:45pm bus has the letters FO beside it. friday only. it was not a friday. ohhh no.

kristen. grab your bags. now. we need to go. there’s no bus. there’s no bus out of here until tomorrow. we need to take a train, that leaves in sixteen minutes. go go go! i know she had no idea what was happening as she followed my frantic footsteps. cab, cab! we need a cab! ohhh praise the lord, there’s one. we hopped in, the train station please! as we nervously laughed and fidgeted with our bags in the back seat, i checked the time on my phone. 8:41. we had to be at the edinburgh airport at 6:45am the following morning–we needed to be in edinburgh tonight. if we miss this train, we miss that plane, we stay the night in st. andrews with only the clothes on our back.

the driver overheard our conversation–what time’s your train girls? more nervous laughter from me. i honestly didn’t remember. too much adrenaline. kristen pipes up, when we were in the station, you said something about sixteen minutes? — oh, that sounds right: i know it was in the early 8:50′s. somewhere around there. cabbie glances at the clock: 8:42. one quick question sir, how long is the drive? — about fifteen minutes. more nervous laughter from us. but hold on girlies, we’ll get you there.

we pull into the train station, completely ignorant of the current time–psssh, it would be a waste of time to stop and check the time. kristen, there’s no train! that’s either a really good or bad sign! we’re running as fast as we can, both with heavy bags, our cameras and a shopping bag each towards the train platform. we run into a fence. ahh! we need to go that way. kristen! i motion with my right hand towards the stairs across the platform. you need to climb the stairs! you go, go, leave me behind! i can’t go as fast, my bun is falling out and my backpack is making me wobble like a turtle! i’ll follow! take one for the teammmm! kristen takes off, both of us hysterically laughing. kristen slips out of sight up the stairs as i watch the cab driver slowly leave the parking lot. [that made everything funnier to me: the fact that he watched us frantically exit and run FULL speed in the opposite direction. classic us.]

my hair fixed firmly secured in a ponytail, my backpack as balanced as it’ll ever be, i catch up to kristen, huddled over the electronic ticket machine. jamie, i can’t figure it out! help me, help me. i hand her my stuff, grabbing her visa card. okay, return to edinburgh, select. one adult. what? no! not return! one-way!! cancel! okay, other destinations. e-d-o, frick! backspace! i’m hopping up and down and kristen is yelling. E-D-I-N, edinburgh, one-way anytime, one adult. add another passenger. insert your card. “your card is not accepted. try again.” oh you better BELIEVE we’re trying again! accept, accept! ACCE–OH GOOD.

the tickets print, we grab them from the dispenser. the clock reads 8:51. WE DID IT. breathless, i can barely stand i am laughing so hard. we stop for ten seconds, enough to look around. the sunset was incredible, the light out of this world, the moment so perfectly full of bliss and adventure and nerves and joy. we threw our bags onto a bench nearby and grabbed our cameras for forty-five seconds of portraits until we saw the train approaching.

kristen walked to the bench to gather up her stuff. oh. crap. jamie, i can’t find my ticket. — what do you mean you can’t find it?! — i mean, i don’t know where i put it. i think i had it on top. i only have my receipt. not the ticket. — you’re kidding me. kristen. — i’m scurrying about, lifting bags up, setting bags down when an orange piece of paper three feet away catches my eye. — found it!!! AHH!!! PTL. we burst onto the train with our bags and cameras and purses, filling the empty cabin with explosive laughter. rapid-fire dialogue between us, only paused to quickly gasp for breath, i cannot believe that all just happened. — i cannot believe we waited at a bus station for two hours only to end up catching a train. — i cannot believe i sat on a bus for three hours this morning with a bunch of old people driving through tiny country roads while you slept. — i cannot believe he drove that fast — i cannot believe we ran the wrong direction in the train station parking lot!! i cannot believe we actually caught this train!!!

the excitement and giggles die down within a half hour to a restful silence: paralleling the vibrant sunset, that in the same time frame, dimmed to a black sky. i look up from my journal, pause adele on my iphone, unplug my headphones and kick kristen under the table. you know what i cannot believe? she lifts her head from the window and opens her eyes, what’s that? — stinkin’ eHow.com. telling us to take the bus. never again, eHow, ne-VER a-GAIN.

after a day of walking around edinburgh, we both knew we wanted to go see some of the scotland countryside… take a bus or a train to somewhere. originally, i was thinking glasgow [simply because i saw it on the map when i was planning] but the more i heard about it, the more i decided it wasn’t worth the effort. commercialized and overrated was the verdict? a blog reader, linda pugh, happened to email me with a few recommendations of things to do in the UK and st. andrews, scotland was on the list! i had never heard of the place but julie described st. andrews as a medieval university town and an international golfing mecca.

kristen and i spent two and a half hours on a bus from edinburgh, arriving at st. andrews just around one o’ clock. [side note: we should have taken a train. we took a train home. that's a different story for a different blog post.] a short walk from the st. andrews bus station led us to the heart of the city: market street. linda had given us a wonderful lot of recommendations: things to see, where to find good coffee, the best restaurants in town, what to avoid. i recognized many places as we walked– loving all the helpful recommends that have been flooding my inbox the last month. blogs are such great connectors.

st. andrews did not disappoint. right away, it is evidently a college town. coffee shops, cafes, restaurants everywhere. we stopped at zest2go for a couple smoothies: razzmatazz for me, paradiso for kristen. our barista [much like the waitress from under the stairs] had the simple, indie style i adore so much. an orange loose sweater, cropped at her waist, over a fitted black dress, black tights short brown boots. her hair messily up in a bun, bangs framing her face. the style i loved [when i spotted it] in edinburgh is on fire in st. andrews. there are many, many thrift stores around town–and i feel like the students there know how to mix classic pieces with thrifted items to create such a put-together but still relaxed wardrobe. we never saw anyone look “done up”–all boots and plaid and buns and scarfs and tights and sneakers and blazers. it also happens to be the land of cute couples.

awkward moment of the day. walking down a street, we passed a man on his cell phone. i always check out style: he was wearing great jeans, cool shoes, button-up, messenger bag–overall an attractive guy. we often note cute girls and cute guys and cute couples, so as we passed, i whispered to kristen: attractive. great shoes. she says, who? i missed it? where? and turns around. whips her head back around to me. umm, he was looking this direction and we made eye contact. keep walking, keep walking. [we are only about fifteen feet ahead of this guy at that point.] bahaha. juuust one girl checking you out, whispering to her friend, friend whipping around to make eye contact with you and then whisper back to her friend. no worries.

there were plenty of people walking around for a small town, yes, but it never felt overwhelming or crowded. endless side streets to explore, most of them empty of people but full of colourful doors, cobblestone floors. we walked by the northpoint cafe, laughing at the publicity they are loving: “william and kate had coffee here!” — st. andrew’s was the town the royal couple studied in.

as every other day when traveling, it’s all about the food and coffee. you eat, walk until you feel like you can eat again, then eat and repeat. for lunch, we tried a placed called the rule: great food, cool atmosphere. i had an amazing lentil soup and a chicken apple salad. for an afternoon coffee break, we stopped into beanscene–a funky place–the kinda scene i feel at home in. macbooks galore, full of students with great style, friendly baristas, art on the walls… unfortunately the americano was disappointing. i am embarrassed that i have become a little bit of a coffee snob. a proper americano should be bold, with the crema still visible on top! it was weak, no crema; although they were nice to add an extra shot for free at my request, still weak. boo. nice place to hang though.

for dinner, we ate at the highly recommended glass house on north street. they had a two course, complimentary drink deal for nine pounds. i promised myself i would photograph the food and then it came and i forgot. but it was delightful. we had the funniest adventure on the way home, but the important bit of news, we made it back to kingsway guest house in edinburgh at eleven that night… and that’s all that mattered!

i feel like i have discovered a different [but in some ways, similar] world over here in scotland compared to canada. i had heard a lot about london–songs are written about the city, chick flicks eat up a main man with an english accent, businessmen and women fly to walk the streets in their important suits, doing important things. after london last week, kristen and i flew to edinburgh on monday afternoon.

unlike england, i don’t hear about scotland often in my daily life nor do i know much about it. i’ve never seen a chick flick based in scotland. i didn’t know if they had a native language [gaelic?! or is that irish!?] or if it was english and english only. my only memory of hearing a scottish accent is my grandpa galt [whose father--or perhaps grandfather--was born in scotland] acting silly in my childhood. when i was thirteen, grandpa lost about eighty percent of his voice; it was hard for him to talk loud enough for people to understand or to demonstrate his scottish tone. he was good at it. he was a proud scotsman from the mcdougall clan: he owned the family tartan, the family plaque — those were some good roots right there. at grandpa’s funeral five or six years ago, the bagpipes proudly started the memorial. i know he would have loved to have been there to hear.

flying into edinburgh at seven thirty was beautiful. i never stopped to think about how long the days must be this far north. i am not completely foreign to the beauty of northern summers… in vancouver, we have light until nine thirty come june. but the may days in edinburgh linger until nine themselves–praise the lord for sunshine. a thirty minute bus from the airport to the city centre, my soul exhaling every mile we traveled. i was so happy to be out of the big city.

i coordinated every detail for our trip. it’s in my nature to take charge–i know i’m fairly capable, i feel well traveled and kristen is happy to rest in whatever i do. [currently, as i write, she's asleep beside me at the edinburgh airport. typical.] i know my way around booking flights, finding hotels, planning transportation routes–however, i’m not this good. when we arrived at the kingsway guest house monday evening and saw the “bed and breakfast” sign out front i thought, oh that’s cute and fun! i didn’t know it was a bed and breakfast! let me tell you, this booking was a goooooood decision.

we entered and were greeted by name, from a woman quickly introduced as lizzie. lizzie along with her husband garry, run the kingsway guest house–situated only a mile from most of the action in edinburgh–and have been for over three years now. we climbed the windy stairs up to our room, room number two. soft patterned wallpaper covered the walls, bright white furniture, a crystal chandelier, white bedding decorated with two gray tartan pillows. we were shown the breakfast menu and daily specials for each morning, served from eight to nine thirty in the dining room. it felt like home. [not that i get this kind of service at home, no offense mom, but i make my own breakfast every morning.]

the first of our two days staying in edinburgh was spent wandering the cobblestone streets. up and down the royal mile, admiring the views from the left to the right–remarking at how different than london this felt, how thrilled we were to be here. i have wonderful blog readers and i received a recommendation to eat at a shop called chocolate soup. amazing, economical place to have lunch! i had the vegetable soup and kristen had something more like a stew–filling and wonderful. apparently their specialty is hot chocolate and espresso drinks with chocolate, in general.

we wandered down princes street, stopping at costa coffee for a green tea and a break from the wind. after a little warmth, it was to the park with our bibles and our journals–i promised myself i would take time to reflect on this whole adventure. we sat in the sunshine until the cold urged us to start moving again. photographing whatever we wished, we slowly made our way to one of the five university campuses near the city–people watching the students who passed us.

after a restful and ridiculous afternoon, we settled on a place for dinner called under the stairs–after reading my friend robyn’s edinburgh city guide. it was after seven o’ clock when we made our way down the tiny stone steps to enter the restaurant. as we waited to be seated, i glanced around. students rested on gray tweed couches, their mugs of beer [half empty and frothy] placed nearby on low wood tables. two tables in the back sat larger groups, all with a drink in their hand, laughter filling the room. the room was dimly lit by the small amount of sunlight peeking through the basement windows with the street above us.

our waitress bounced over to ask, here for drinks or food, girls? she seated us at a circular wooden table near the front of the restaurant and i admired her simple style. a colourful bandana twisted into a headband, her short blonde hair pulled back into a bun. a graphic t-shirt paired with beige cords that stopped two inches above the ankle, revealing white keds. we ordered water to start–and she began listing the evening specials, straining to see the board across the room. on the tip of her keds, she moved her head left and right, trying to see around the other tables. in her soft accent, she apologized for not knowing with a sincere laugh and left to get a closer look.

under the stairs, as i can best think to describe it, is a pub, restaurant, coffee house combination. it feels like all three–and the business does all three excellently. it’s a small kitchen and the two larger groups made for a slow meal. we were warned in advance and enjoyed the hour before our meal with coffee. a “white” for kristen and two decaf black coffees for me. i need to note that the water pitcher came with cucumbers. i love cucumber water.

our waitress was so, so helpful and easy-going when it came to my allergies and modifying the menu: which honestly, i did not expect at a pub. my quarter chicken with pan-fried potatoes and sauteed kale was beautiful, kristen’s beef burger and sweet potato fries equally enjoyed by her. seven thirty turned to nine thirty after much conversation, people-watching and delightful eating. we paid our bill and left the restaurant for our guest house–wishing we could bring under the stairs home.