It was on my first solo backpacking trip. I arrived in London, activated my first Eurail pass and immediately hopped on a 6-hour train to Edinburgh. I bought a horrible meal on the train and remember a fellow passenger, a woman, commenting on it. She was concerned that it wasn't nutritious enough for my dinner. I think she was feeling a motherly protective instinct towards the naive, lone American tourist. I remember loving the tea I had, but forcing myself to eat the awful "beef hot pot" because I didn't want to waste the money I'd spent.
When I arrived in Edinburgh, I was going to swing by the Tourist Information Office to get a reservation at the youth hostel and a city map. However, the TI was closed. Whipping out my copy of "Let's Go," I put a Pound coin in the phone and called the only centrally-located youth hostel. It was full.
It was approaching 8:30 P.M. and I was beginning to panic. They suggested calling a farther-afield hostel and gave me the number. I thanked the man and stupidly hung up. What I should have done was to push the "follow on call" button which would let me make another call using the remainder of the Pound I'd put in. One phone call should not cost $1.60! But I'd screwed up and paid $1.60 to get nowhere in my quest for safe shelter.
So what did I do? I lost it.
I cried like a baby. Standing right there at that phone, I let the exhaustion, culture shock and sheer stupidity of my situation overwhelm me. I shuffled over to a nearby bench and cried it out for about five minutes. I walked back to the closed TI office to see if there were any suggestions for accomodations near the train station that I could walk to, but with no luck.
Finally, I fished out my final Pound coin and made the call. The Bruntsfield hostel had a bed in a 28-bed room for me. As night fell, I followed the crappy map in my book to the hostel. Out of sheer tiredness, I got sort of lost three times. I kept turning up streets too early, assuming that my map was mis-labeled. It seemed to me like I was walking entirely too long.
But I got there, got the spot and collapsed in bed. I slept fitfully, on the top bunk, in a room filled with 13 other bunk beds. When I paid for the bed the next morning, packed up and ready to head to the centrally-located hostel, I was ashamed to have to use a 50 Pound note. I cleared the guy out of change before 8 A.M..
I think back on that moment in the train station a lot. It's the first time I truly pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. Yes, it was a minor incident, but it was the first time I truly took control of my safety when travelling.
It was awful and wonderful at the same time.
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