The night coach from London to Edinburgh only stops for a break once. Around 2.30 am we pulled into a motorway service station. The burger shop was open but I was not hungry so bought a packet of chewing gums instead. There were only sugar free minty flavours which made me a little sad.
The service stations in Germany and Austria have warm lights and piles of Milka and Ritter Sport chocolates in all flavours imaginable. And Nici toys and coffee mugs. The service station near Sheffield was lit by neon lights which hurt a little.
One of the ladies on the Budapest Edinburgh coach was a TEFL teacher (age late forties?) who did a masters at Warwick University last year and now she is back teaching Chinese students English for a month or so. She is afraid of flying. She sat next to a bubbly younger woman and seemed to have become friends. I don’t know if their bodies touched when they were asleep, in fact, I don’t know whether they could sleep much as they sat next to the back door, meaning that their leg room was limited. The TEFL teacher lady gave me a 100 FT coin before Hegyeshalom as I spent my last forints on taxi to the Nepliget coach station. She saw me turning back and walking up the steps and offered the coin. We talked occasionally throughout the journey but I can’t recall any details. At one point I was taken aback by her demonstration of ignorance on one topic or another and she was ignorant of her ignorance.
I mentioned the self made businessman who runs his own business in the North of England. He knew everything about the English (Scotland has somewhat different rules) benefit system and said the key was having lots of babies. Apparently, as a parent you get £30 a week per child and can look forward to the swift allocation of a house of appropriate size. He seemed completely unaware of the moral aspects of benefit tourism. I must admit I never really believed that such a thing existed, but he advised his audience with conviction so I might have to revise my position.
In Belgium all the motorways are lit. Before Eurolines changed the departure time (sometime after the 7/7 suicide attacks in London) it was a pain as it was hard to fall asleep as the light pattern relentlessly irritated my retina.
In the UK motorways are like runways, lots of shiny cat eyes stuck into the road both sides and middle. Red, yellow, sometimes green, sometimes blue. Sections of the motorways are lit as we approach a major junction.
Next time I will invest in one of these blackout eye masks. And a high tech neck pillow.
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