I was supposed to meet my friend, Beth at 2 p.m. in King’s Cross Station in London. I had just dropped off my sister at the airport. She came to visit me for six days and left me lugging a suitcase filled with food she brought from the States for me.

Apparently, my mom doesn’t think I eat over here. I looked around the station and didn’t see Beth. At first I was going to either wait by the bar or Burger King—the first two places Beth would look for me. Instead, I sat near the Tube Station because she would have to get to me by subway.

After about an hour I started to worry. Maybe she thought it was another day or time. But because of a train derailment at the beginning of October, all British trains were running on speed restrictions.

She finally arrived close to five. I checked my extra bag at the station lockers, and we hopped the next train to Edinburgh Scotland.

Normally, it only takes about five hours to get from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverly. The mission of our Scotland trip was to go on a tour of the countryside, and join a Haggis Tour. It was a three-day long trip that started and ended in Edinburgh.

The Scottish Highlands had the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen. The weather was great and by Sunday morning, we were on the Isle of Skye in the far north of Scotland.

The bus left at 8 a.m. and travelled through harsh winds and rain to arrive in Edinburgh at 5 p.m. We ran to the train station because we knew with the delays we would have a late night back to Swansea.

Right away, the night seemed longer. A train to London pulled away right as we got to the stations and we waited an hour and a half for the next one to come. Our train was crowded and our ticket takers were rude. The 6:30 train to London didn’t pull into King’s Cross until 1 a.m.

I guess 1 a.m. isn’t really late, but the time caused a world of difficulty. Unfortunately, the office where I could pick up my luggage closed at 11 p.m. — I had to leave it there. There were no more trains from Paddington Station to Swansea until 7 a.m. The Tube closed at 11 p.m. so we had to wait inline for a taxi from King’s Cross to Paddington to wait even longer for a the first train out. The train company was offering free taxis to where ever you needed to go. We got in line, but we were the last in line and waited for two more hours.

When we got closer to the front, we told them what we were planning on doing. They said we had two options: we could wait at the train station for hours or they would hire a taxi to take us on a 200 mile trip back to Swansea. We took the second choice. A few miles outside the city, Beth asked Kevin, the cabbie, how much a 200-mile trip would cost. He answered very calmly in his East London accent, “Four hundred pounds, Love.” We couldn’t believe the train company was paying almost $700 to send two students back to Swansea. We fell asleep in the cab and thought our trip was almost over. We should have known better. About halfway to Swansea ,we stopped for coffee and to fill up on petrol. While we finished our coffees in the shop, the electricity went out. Harsh winds in the area wiped out electricity for miles.

We waited for two hours and heard on the radio that trains to Swansea were suspended until further notice. Eventually, we were back on the road and inching toward home. I was so excited to finally lay my head on my pillow at 9 a.m. Monday.

No worries, though. It was a great adventure and completely worth every minute of travelling. Besides, the Scottish accent is dead sexy.