paravostok transit

three cities, one night, and a spare sofa

2 June 2025

on the 31st may this year, I embarked upon a trip to Aberdeen, the plan being to go from my house, to Glasgow, to Stirling, to Dundee, to Aberdeen, to Edinburgh, and then back home again. However this trip didn't go ahead due to various reasons, regardless I fancied a coach jaunt, and what did I end up with? a very sore tailbone, and a headache.

the first leg of my trip was nothing special, just a typical journey towards Glasgow, via a lift to heartlands services, and then a megabus AIR service to Buchanan Bus Station. However, immediately after getting on the coach and taking off my bag, the bus started moving as I began to sit down, which led to my full body weight landing on the seatbelt plug, and thus a very sore tailbone, which still hurts as of writing this! but hey, accidents happen, and worst things have happened on journeys of mine (although not great foreshadowing for my luck the rest of the day).

after getting off at Glasgow, I had about an hour til my bus, an Ember service E3 (Glasgow to Dundee via Perth), departed from the bus station, so I made a quick detour to Buchanan Street subway station to add some money to my subway smartcard, before running back to the bus station, my bus was in about 30 minutes now, but I started to feel a pang of hunger so I went to the helpfully placed Greggs situated within the bus station, where I got 2 very greasy - but nonetheless delicious hashbrowns. after I had eaten them, my ember coach near-silently rolled into stance 53 - Ember is my favourite coach operator for a few main reasons,

1. they don't charge a booking fee for concessionary fares, unlike citylink, megabus, and flix who charge a minimum £1 fee.
2. fully electric operations mean quiet and comfy rides all round, plus makes them 100% emission free.
3. their booking system meaning that despite the displayed journey times on google maps, they are very often ahead of schedule as they don't stop at every stop - only those booked.
4. the staff is always nice, they do small things like help load and unload luggage and bikes on/off the coach, and they always seem to actually enjoy their job.
5. they keep expanding. rapidly. 3 new routes this year. with services to/from England seemingly on the horizon.

basically, they run a fairly tight ship, and I appreciate that. regardless, after a very short trip to Perth (my least favourite Scottish city) I wandered around broxden park and ride for a while before deciding to get some food at the nearby mcdonalds. this is when things started going downhill.

due to the robbie williams concert on the day, I didn't want to risk not having a seat on my coach to Edinburgh, so I reserved a seat for a citylink service M90, great right? It was scheduled to arrive 13:15 and at that moment it was around 12:40, so great, time to use the toilet and walk around after my food. but then, the first crisis hit - my phone was about to die, now normally this wouldn't be ideal, sure but not the end of the world. however, due to there being roughly 20 people waiting at the stop, and the coach coming all the way from Inverness, I felt like if i didn't have the ticket I would be hard pressed to get a seat, and potentially end up stranded at perth for a few hours with a dead phone. by this point its 13:10, my phone is at 1% and the coach wasn't showing up on the app, and on the live departure screen by the stop it was showing a simple timetabled time "13:15", and as the time came on it became more and more nervewracking. eventually it hit 13:16, and the departure board no longer shown my bus, possibly the worst case scenario. by now I decided that if the bus didn't come within 10 mins I would hop on a bus to Glasgow, and then get a 900 to Edinburgh, hopefully avoiding the crowds where possible. come 14:25, and I wander over to the flix/ember departures area of the bus station, and there was an Ember E3 service to glasgow in 13 minutes, great! but then, at 14:33, a Citylink bus rolled into the station, at this point the Glasgow bus was due, I made a risky decision and ran to the Citylink bus, and thank god, it was the service M90, ~20 minutes late, but it was here, and I managed to get on, on the very last open row of seats, my phone still somehow on 1% hanging on. however, unfortunately whoever designed the interior of the bus had apparently never considered how practical the placement of chargers were, as they were on the ceiling of the bus, which unfortunately for me - someone with a very short charging cable, this was useless, but I was on my way.

eventually by 16:05 we had made it to Edinburgh, after a fairly busy but smooth journey. however I've never felt so glad to take public transit, as there was a constant stream of traffic from about halbeath park and ride (where 2 very young bus spotters were taking photos of my bus) up until queensferry, fortunately for me, our bus wasn't going across the queensferry crossing, but rather the forth road bridge, which made the journey feel like pseudo-brt, watching traffic as we sped down the bridge uncontested, I've never felt more smug. after we rejoined onto a90 towards Barnton junction, the traffic caught up to us, which turned a short journey to the bus station into half an hour plus, with half of that being spent at Queen street/York place, competing not only with all the other coaches, but trams, local buses, aswell as cars, but in the end we made it. after a little while spent wandering Edinburgh and getting food, I came back to the bus station and got on an uncomfortably warm citylink service 900, their flagship service running between edinburgh and buchanan bus station, every 15 minutes. we left slightly later than expected but from there it was smooth sailing, and i could even charge my phone, a very much needed luxury at this point, as although my phone was still somehow clinging on at 1% by this point, it was clear it would die, sooner or later. we arrived in Glasgow by 20:08, the second time id been there that day. the 900 is a great service and I love it, it's not much slower than the train, and for under-22s, over 60s, and disabled people and their companions - completely free, as opposed to the adult return fare of £16.80, and often with more comfortable seats. this frequency is also only for the 900, the flixbus 090 also runs practically the same route every 30 minutes, and if you don't mind going to the airport, or are starting at harthill, the citylink and megabus AIR services are perfectly reasonable options too. in practice this means there's always a coach waiting at either station going from one to the other.

in Buchanan bus station I went to Greggs for the second time that day, and felt a vague sense of déjà vu. I got a mexican chicken oval bite, a staple of mine, and at the till the worker asked if I had my student card with me. at this point I realised I should probably shave, as I not only didn't have it with me, didn't have one in the first place, but am in high school, atleast 4 years off of typical uni age. once I bought the sandwich there was a megabus AIR waiting for me at stance 48, and since the next ones straight to the city centre were in around 30 minutes, (likely due to traffic) I got on the AIR service and figured I'd just take a Lothian Airlink service 100 to Drum Brae to catch my bus home, this was also good as it allowed me to quickly use the toilet at the airport, one of few and far between public toilets in Edinburgh. but after getting off the bus, the biggest tragedy so far hit.

the bus I take home is the Lothian Country service x18, which has variations on the route, particularly in the wee hours of the morning and late hours at night, and given by this point it was just past 21:30, the last bus running the full route was scheduled to come in about 12 minutes, as displayed on the lothian app. but then something hit me, why isn't it on the live departure board? and why is the next bus (only going to Bathgate) in less than 20 minutes, given the service runs half hourly, this concerned me, and in combination with the bus I wanted being absent from the departure board entirely, I got concerned, and rightfully so - I checked the map and it was sitting, along with several other buses, at Murrayfield, the same place the special service x12 runs to ferry people towards Murrayfield for the concert, at which point it clicked. my bus wasn't running. it was set to run as the service x12 for concert goers, as presumably lothian didn't have enough buses to run it without pulling any of their other services. however it seemed quite short sighted to me to pull a bus routes last service that ran the full route of the night, especially on the night of a concert. regardless, at this point my phone was, once again pretty low on battery, this time, however it was a bigger issue as I was more or less stranded in the current state, until an idea hit me. the train. Edinburgh Park station wasn't too far away from Drum Brae and I could make it there by walking, get home faster than if i caught the bus and beat the concert crowds, what could go wrong? my phone battery. my phone battery could go wrong. draining from 17% to 11% to 6% to 3% to 1%, and normally, whatever, but without my phone, I couldn't pay for a train ticket, which means I couldn't get on the train, which means I would just be stuck in Wester Hailes at 22:30, not exactly my idea of a well spent saturday.

desperation. by this point I accepted defeat, I couldn't get myself home, regardless of what I did, combined with the fact concert crowds would be everywhere soon, it became not only, late at night on a weekend in Wester Hailes, but now crowds were about to be everywhere. so by this point? I gave in. I messaged my girlfriend (who lives in Edinburgh) and ended up taking the bus to hers and staying overnight, which was pretty much the best case scenario at this point, if needed I also could've walked, it just wouldn't have been fun, so there I was, sitting with a dead phone for what seemed like hours waiting for a bus, a man next to me on call with someone whilst simultaneously watching tiktoks at a slightly obnoxious volume, but by the time the bus came, I was imagining being wrapped up and cozy in her house, as opposed to the current situation of me sitting on the bus, in my subway hoodie, as the wright eclipse gemini 1 trundled up the hills of corstoprhine, eventually lying down on her living room couch, the end to my cursed journey. I'm not sure what I did to upset the transit gods that day, but I certainly won't do it again. because at the end of the day, all I had was a sore head, tailbone, and a sofa to sleep on