Behind the Scenes Travel

19 hours straight in transit and 7 more to go.

I know you guys only see our selected photos from beautiful places around Europe and everything looks like a fairy-tale but it's time to get real with you.

I'm writing this from a 14 hour bus ride from London to Aberdeen after spending the night sleeping in Luton Airport. I never thought id be here either but sometimes the destination is worth the sleep depriving journey...right?

We woke up in Rome at some crazy hour of the morning to walk to the train station where we would catch a train to the airport. firstly the walk was a good 40 minutes with an 18kg backpack on and the Italian humidity killing us. secondly, our neighborhood was a cheap student area where, what felt like the whole homeless/drunken population in Rome gathered so we had to be prepared to be hassled on our way. After making it the train station on time, tired and sweaty we jump on the next train available to Rome Airport only to discover that Italian trains NEVER run on time and hardly ever have air conditioning. so we sat in the sweat box until the driver decided to show up for work and maybe after his Espresso with 2 sugars we would depart.The airport was new and air conditioned!!! and although we enjoyed to comfort there, it was such a relief to get on that plane out of Rome and never to return.

Part two: our flight from Rome to Luton was due to land at 10.15pm and our options were to a.PRAY, to catch the last bus at 10.40pm from Luton to Edinburgh (where Liam's dad would pick us up) or b.ACCEPT IT, we would never make the bus in 25 minutes and we would just sleep at the airport until the next bus comes which by the way, was at 10am from LONDON. I'm sure you can guess which option we wanted, and which one we obviously received.

If you have ever been in Luton airport's arrivals terminal you will know it's pretty much a shed with a Costa coffee shop and M&S food shop so we find the comfiest chairs we can to get some sleep. the comfiest chairs were in Costa so I suppose we need to buy something in exchange for allowing us to sleep in their shop right? well i dunno if we had just completely lost it by that point but we ordered 2 coffees.. yeah the caffeinated drink that stimulates your brain and keeps you awake, coz that's exactly what we needed!

It's 6am in Luton Airport and with about 3 hours sleep between us we now need to catch a bus to London's Victoria Bus Station to make our 14 hour bus trip to Aberdeen, Scotland. I don't remember getting to Victoria Station, i think i was sleeping with my eyes open or something, but we made it! one more bus trip left and i'll just sleep on this one i kept thinking. HA! think again. We have taken busses around the UK and Europe before and they have all been quite good, Flixbus have great WiFi and Megabus are super comfy with cheap prices. Now it's National Express' turn. Its packed when we get on so we chose the two seats together located near the back. What a dumb idea that was, the only toilet on the bus is right behind us and i swear every single person on the bus has used it since we have been sitting here and we weren't even 2 hours in yet. I feel so physically ill every time that door opens that a girl across from me has cracked the emergency window in the roof.(it doesn't make a difference) In a small attempt to convince myself it will all be worth it in the end, i try to plan our 3 weeks by googling things to do in Aberdeen only to find out that THERES NO WIFI!!! arghh you're at the bottom of the leader board National Express!

We are now about 6 hours in, trying to sleep with a perfume drenched scarf around my face to block the stank and now we have just been told by the driver that we are 2 hours behind schedule already so will only be stopping once on the whole trip to make up lost time... WHAT THE F**K?!

Evidently I lost my shit.. We are now trapped on this dirty shit box for 16 hours not 14, sleep deprived, no wifi and no chance of getting off for some fresh air at all. Not only is National Express at the bottom of the leaderboard but they should thank god they don't

have WiFi on board because the review they would have received from me would probably send me to hell.

So this is where i am, writing this post as i would in my travel journal, scarf still covering all the breathing holes in my face, praying for a miracle but accepting that it will all be over in another 8 hours. That's only like a day at work, easy!

Okay, update: A kid just puked down the whole aisle of the bus and we still have 5 hours to go. I'm not religious but please Lord Baby Jesus please perform some sort of a miracle and transport us to Aberdeen now!!. I'll owe you one I swear!

#travel #backpacker #bustravel #nationalexpress #lutonairport #transit #aberdeen #scotland #bts