You take the night bus for the reason. And the reason is you are too cheap to pay for a train. National Express from London Victoria Coach Station to Edinburgh costs approximately £25, and you will spend nine lovely hours on a coach. And if you are lucky enough, you will have the pleasure of crying babies or people lacking personal hygiene. Nine hours in the bus, with one approximately 20-minute break somewhere between nothing and something called Birmingham.
November Edinburgh`s early mornings are magical. Empty streets, the city just waking up into the fading darkness, cold breeze and frozen nose. Leaving all London`s affairs behind, you walk up the hill towards Victoria Street. Climbing the stairs through the Devil Advocate Alley, thinking of the very first cup of coffee you will have and if it will taste like liberation or will be as sour as sorrows that have been carried way too long.
Sun is waking up after the night of the heavy rain. Blue sky and Edinburgh`s castle on the hill. You walk without any particular destination in your mind. Cross the Waverly Bridge to Princess Street and then back to Cockburn Street. Sitting in the Milkman Cafe, sipping flat white and eating cinnamon swirl. People walking to work, everything feels like in slow motion film.
You should be sitting in the uni class, but for some reason, you chose to be a rebel today. Oh man, you could definitely live here. Life feels like everything is too much, work sucks, and people at work suck even more. Love life couldn’t be any more complicated and messier than now, and certain affairs should be over years ago. Yeah, the coffee feels like liberation with a bit of an aftertaste of sadness. Maybe it`s time again to pack a backpack, leave, and start over; you have done it before.
Wow, one coffee and cinnamon swirl makes you think all of that? You really are a heavy overthinker. It’s time to get on the move again. Because you have been to Edinburgh so many times, you decided to leave the city centre and get the bus to the beach. Portobelo Beach is a 40-minute bus drive away. You spend the day staring at the horizon, trying the temperature of the North Sea, and getting frosty feet, sipping apple cinnamon tea with the best view ever.
Scotland will forever be your favourite love affair.…
