Elanor Lawrence: Day 53: O, The People You'll Meet!

There’s something about travel that makes people open up to each other. I don’t know if it’s the boredom, or the close proximity, or simply the feeling of newness that comes from changing location, but it suddenly becomes okay to strike up a conversation with complete strangers.

This past weekend, when I went to visit Hannah, I met a man on the bus from Glasgow to Dumfries. He was Glasgow born and bred, middle aged and married, owned his own mechanic shop, and was about as different from me as you could imagine. But, for the hour and a half down to Moffat, we chatted about basically everything, from books to busses to Scottish separatism to religion.

It was fascinating to meet someone from such a different background from me, who had so many different ideas—especially about Scottish Nationalism! So often I tend to get caught up in my little bubble of university friends that I forget there’s a whole world out there of people who don’t spend their life in the library.

On the way back from my visit, on the short-ish bus to Dumfries, I rather inadvertently met an older lady. There was a small child on the bus, using his finger to draw in the steam on the windows. The older lady was sitting nearby, and she started drawing with the boy. It was so cute: they gave each other suggestions for what to draw, or guessed what the other person had just drawn.

Eventually, however, they ran out of room on the window. I was sitting right behind them, and when the little boy turned around and suggested they start on my window, I didn’t say anything, I just started drawing. They both enjoyed this immensely, and before long we were all covering our windows in little pictures.

When the bus finally reached Dumfries, I got off with the older lady and chatted to her for a bit as we walked down the street, since my next bus didn’t leave for another hour. Once again, it was a fascinating conversation because this woman broke so many stereotypes. I expected her to be a sort of small-town grandma, but instead she was a feminist, with distinctly sharp words for anyone who looked down on her for being old! She was also the great-niece of the first woman to be granted a degree from Edinburgh University, which I thought was pretty neat.

In one journey, I met two people so very different from myself. It seems like every time I travel, I meet more people who continue to break stereotypes and expand my horizons. While I may not be a huge fan of busses, the people I meet definitely make it worthwhile.