The saga of Tuesday August 6, 2024 travelling between Edinburgh, Scotland and Kingston Upon Thames, England
We arrived at the Edinburgh Central Bus Station about 10:00PM and waited for our 10:30PM bus to arrive. As we approached the bus drive to show him our tickets he informed us that the bus was not the originally scheduled bus and that our seat reservations, that we paid extra for to guarantee we could sit together, carried no weight. No problem, we thought. The bus was relatively empty, making it easy to find seats together. Interestingly, toilets on this bus were located in the middle of the bus and down a set of stairs. Given our family’s need for a toilet at the worst times, I thought we were pretty wise for having chosen the seats closest to the toilet and happy that we weren’t stuck at the back of the bus. Later, my nose disagreed.
We settled in for what we thought would be a 9 hour bus ride with just a few stops along the way. At 12:45AM the bus stopped for the second time and the lights came on. We were all asleep so when the bus driver began speaking quickly and in a thick Scottish accent it sounded like gibberish to us. I noticed a few people getting off the bus, but plenty of others were still asleep or waiting like we were. A few minutes later, the bus driver shouted at us over the intercom. This time it was clear. We had to get off the bus and change to another bus with no explicable reason offered.
Groggily, we made it off the bus and began collecting our luggage. The next bus was packed. Well, not really. In reality, every row was taken up by one person and their bag. Not a single person made even the slightest move to make space for us. Oh, and one man took up three of the four seats in the back row and only moved his legs enough to open up one additional seat. I knew it was late, but that is pretty rude and absurd when seeing a family of six board a bus with four young, sleepy children who could barely keep their emotions together.
We finally found seats in the very back of the bus, distributed across several rows, and far from the toilet for a sleepy child. Eitan was not having it. He refused to sit next to a stranger. After at least five, maybe even ten, minutes of standing in the aisle while angrily staring the stranger next to me told me he would find a different seat so that Eitan could sit next to me. As soon as he moved, Eitan happily sat down and tried to fall back asleep. Now we were sitting in pairs, Shai and Amichai in the back next to the sleeping man, Matanel and Chaim diagonally in front, and Eitan and I directly in front of Matanel and Chaim.
Finally on our way, I had a hard time falling back asleep between making sure Eitan was comfortable and checking on the other to boys to make sure we could get them to the toilet if they needed. It was a real feat to be able to carry a sleepy child down the narrow aisle without hitting anyone, down the steps without falling, and managing to make sure the pee made it into the toilet all during a very bumpy bus ride. Chaim did a superb job managing it all; I was grateful Eitan had pinned me in, rendering me useless in this situation. With all of the back and form, neither Chaim nor I slept much so we worked on logistics through the crack between our rows.
At some point during the ride, Shai said he felt unwell and started turning green. Sitting with his stomach compressed was not doing him any favors. Luckily, Chaim and I got smart and took several barf bags off the plane when we landed in Edinburgh the day before. You know, just in case something like this were to happen. Thirty minutes later, Shai began puking. It was so sad. Thankfully, Amichai slept through the whole episode. Otherwise, he might not have appreciated Shai falling back asleep right on top of him for the remainder of the ride. Finally, we pulled into the station around 8:30AM, an hour later than expected, grabbed all of our luggage, and walked about ten minutes to London’s Victoria Station to wait for a train to what we thought would be Walton-on-Thames. That is a story for next time.
