I remember as a little girl I wanted to travel the world, meet new people and discover the undiscoverable. I had my chance a few years ago to travel to England to visit a friend of mine. At the time she and her husband had only been in England for 6 months and had a new born.
While it was great visiting with them and traveling around England via the train and car, I think the best time I had was going to Scotland alone, yep that's right folks, I was alone.
Picture this: attractive, 20 something year old female, decked out in my pink North Face jacket(my 80 dollar jacket cost them about $300, had no clue), leather cowboy boots straight from Texas and a ski hat I bought in Aspen, Colorado. I was a sight for sure. Considering EVERYONE wore black, gray or brown. Anyway, I digress. Here are the 3 main reasons to travel alone!!!
1.Get out of your comfort zone
2.Forcing yourself to meet and interact with people
3.You will learn something about yourself!
1. Getting out of your comfort zone
Here I am, a southern girl with the accent and all headed to Glasgow then to Edinburgh. On the quick flight over, I start a conversation with the man next to me. Now chatting with people on planes really isn't fun, you know you don't talk to the person next to you, every! Well we start to talk, he has two daughters both in medical school. One is on the Oxford rowing team and the other is at Cambridge and he is an engineer. Smart family if I do say so myself. He ask me where I am headed, I say Edinburgh via Glasgow. The conversation continues and it seems, I had no idea how I was going to get t oEdinburg.
I would have been so lost with out this guys help. He drew out a map, of when, and where I needed to be to catch the train to Edinburgh. With out him I would probably still be in Scotland, seriously. Which brings me to my next point.
2.Forcing yourself to interact: with this I got: 2 job offers, 1 set up with a son, and learned more about S.C from a Scotchman then I ever learned in South Carolina History class. Oh and met the hotest Austrialian ever...wonder where he is now. Mick (yeah mick, with no last name from Melbourne) if you read this hit a girl up!
Just by saying hi to someone or smiling at them as you pass you are interacting with them. Well, after the great directions from the guy on the plane, I make my train to Edinburgh. So, I am chillin' minding my own business. To the right of me is a father reading the paper, his 15 year old son infront of him, behind me a man that is about a million years old.
The old man looks at me, in my pink North Face and says, "where you from?" I say the United States. He nods in approval and the kid to the right is starring, I mean starring at me. I start to feel a little uncomfortable. The kid then ask in an excited voice, " REALLY? AMERICA?" I smile and say yep. The Dad lowers the paper, looks at me and smiles. The old man behind me replies," You sound southern, you must be from South Carolina?" In shock and confusion, I reply with a yes and how in the world did you know that and have you ever been to South Carolina? He replies, "nope never been." In my head, I was thinking, "well then, alrighty, this is strange. With out me saying anything else, this may starts rattling off South Carolina history like he was there at our states founding, he seemed to be that old so it is possible. I think this guy new more about S.C then my Granny, that is saying alot. We chatted the rest of the way all while the boy next to me didn't take his eyes off of me like I was an undiscovered object.
From there, I reach Edinburgh. Oh how I miss that city. GO if you ever get a chance. I check into my hotel, take a long bath, go down to the bar and park it there for the rest of the night. I was getting my buzz on when a man comes up behine me. He says in a thick Irish accent, "Aye, you from America?" Oh I get this question a lot so bare with me. I node with a yes. He invites me to come sit with he and his long time girlfriend. So, I do, I can't pass up some talk time with strangers. We sit, drink, talk, and drink some more. They were in town for a soccer match and by the end of it they tried to set me up with their son.
Full day number 2 in Ediburgh, I wake up with a slight hangover. Dang, those Irish peeps can drink. I head out on my own. So because I am all by my lonesome, I can do what ever the hell I want. There is no going back and forth, Hey, what do you want to do? I don't care, what do you want to do? And so forth. I decided to trek it up to Edinburgh Castle...it was AMAZING! Well, I wanted to document that I was actually there so I ask the first person I see to take my picture. Me, "Excuse me? Would you mind taking my picture?" The lady replying in a thicker accent then my own," HONEY, where you from?" Seriously, I travel all the way across the pond to run into another American. I say S.C, she starts to jump up and down and tells me she if from Surfside Beach, which is where our family had a house for years. I tell her this and it ends up we new some of the same people. Crazy, I know.
Continuing on, I keep doing my thing, because I can do what ever I want since I am alone. I take my treck to the shops of the Royal Mile. If you have never been there it is a straight line between Edinburgh Castle and Hollyrood Place, lined with pubs, shops and restaurants. I do a wee bit o shoping and tour Hollyrood Place. My plans for that day was to catch a train to Pitlochry, Scotland. I was hungry, I ducked into a little pub.
It was a classic pub, exactly what you would think of if you were to think of a pub in the UK. Dark, all wood, and even an old guy at the bar. I sit, order a sandwhich and start talking to the old guy. By the end of it, I had a bagpipest pulled in off the street and play for me, spoke with the owner of the bar to figure out how I could get a work visa to become his bartender, and was almost talked into not going to Pitlochry. I really should have taken him up on the bartender gig! Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
Fast forward, I am on a train to Pitlochry. Sitting alone, reading, the lady next to me startes chatting. She of course ask, "where are you from?" I say the United States. It turns out she owned a castle B&B in Sterling, Scotland. Where good ole' grandpa William Wallace is from. Yep, I am related. Look him up if you don't know who he is. By the end of the train ride, she offers me a managerial position at HER castle B&B. WTH was I thinking not taking that one. Damn you hindsight.
I arrive in Pitlochry. There isn't much to do there and I shouldn't have gone because the next day I ended up with the worst hangover of my entire life to date! I check into my victorian hotel and huff it to the pub. If you haven't guessed, I beer. At the pub, I belly up to the bar. This time wearing, a black turtleneck, dark jeans, and my Texas boots. I get situated and not 10 min in another old man approaches. I think I attract old men btw. This dude is wasted with one tooth in his head. He ask me....ok people you know, "where are you from" I say.... the good ole US of A. That is about all I said because he laid into me. Talking shit about the USA and George Bush, who I don't really care for but it is like when someone talks about your Mama and you get mad because you are the only one that can talk about her. Anyway, I start to get really irritated with this old guy. As a polite southern gal I keep my trap shut.
Apparently, my aggrivation visable because some nice young men come to my rescue. I sit with them the rest of the night, it was drink after drink, my kind of people. One of the guys, Steven has become one of my good friends we chat on occassion via facebook or email. I hope to get back to see him again sometime soon!
Alrighty then, about to wrap this up I promise. So heading to the airport via the train to head back to merry ole England. Well, I miss my flight. I panic, what the hell am I suppose to do? I am alone, in an airport, in a foreign country. I suck it all up and book the next flight out in the morning. Please don't get me wrong, there was a lot of panic, yelling, tears and hyperventalating. As I said, I sucked it up.
I am chillin with about 20 other people who miss their flight. Everyone is alseep but me, I am wide await and reading the latest trash magazine for the millionth time. Then comes this voice from behind me. He says in an Australian accent, "excuse me mate, would you have a phone" AHHHH I did have a phone, he probably could have had anything he asked for. The poor chap had left his passport in Edinburgh. So, the good lookin', 6'3, black haired, blue eyed dream boat and I stayed up the entire night talking about life, our homes and why we were traveling. We even waited for our planes the next morning together. Wanna know something, he is the only person the entire trip I didn't get an email, phone number, or last name from. YES, I do regret that! So Mick from Melbourne if you are out there, holla at me!
Hang in there, almost done, the story continues. Mick and myself are waiting on our planes. In walk 3 drunk men, oh it is 7am. Mick looks at me and laughs, I say, yep I bet they will be on my plane. Sure enough, they were, and sat next to me. They were decked out in their team colors headed to Spain for a Soccer match. Could you image, hopping on a plane for a day trip to another country? These guys were still drunk from the night before. It was a Dad his friend and the son. Well the son was turing every shade of green there was, thank goodness he was sitting infront of me. Of course I start to talk to the Dad. He askes me about my Dad and what he does for a living, which is, he owns a sub shop. Apparently, this guy owned a restaurant as also. He asked if I had gotten my Dad anything from Scotland, which I had. He proceeds to take off his shirt...it isn't what you think. His shirt was a jersey that he just purchased of his favorite scottish soccer team. He takes it off, hands it to me and tells me to give it to my Dad as a present, he dons another shirt that he had in his carrryon. How many people do you know would do that.
Thanks for hanging in there. My point to all this is, meeting new people will help you discover humanity and a little about yourself. The kindness of strangers got me through that trip and is an experience I will never forget. If I were traveling with someone else, none, I mean, none of that would have happend. We would have kept to ourselves and gone through the ups and downs together which would not have made the trip as fun as it really was!
3.
Learning something about yourself
Well from the above rants, you can see that I learned a lot about myself. Here is what I learned and have been able to apply to my life since then.
- I can talk to almost anyone
- If something goes wrong, don't panic, or worry because it WILL work out
- I can get around a foreign place all by myself, if I can do it there then I can go anywhere alone: Independence
- I can learn something from any situation
- People are just people, don't be afraid of them
Ok well I hope you enjoyed reading this. There will be pictures to follow from my travels in the UK.
