ScotRail is Not Your Friend

Hello! Well, today was an interesting day for me.  I woke up this morning and had a thought that I should check train tickets for our Easter plans.  This is how I started my morning.  I found out that our 44 pound train had turned into a 86 pound train.  This is when ScotRail began messing with my life.  Grace managed to solve problem number 1 before my seminar this morning, so I went to class in a bright and cheery mood.  Then, I had to work in a group with Sassy Kid.  Here is what I discovered.  Sassy Kid is the future president of the student union on campus (which is the student government type thing).  He proceeded to brag about this fact for about half of class.  I have never been so happy to think that I won't be here next year when Sassy Kid takes over the world.  Working with Sassy Kid was about as annoying as what I thought it would be.  It was not a fun time.

Then, I had my lecture with the Dr. Jekyll.  Today we talked mainly about insane asylums (does anyone else see the humor in this?).  He seemed to know a lot about them.  This really made me suspicious of his past. He kept saying "these reforms of the NHS took place over 1 lifetime! In fact, my grandmother lived to see them all!"  Ok, if that was true, this would mean that his grandmother lived to be 199 years old because the reforms began in 1808 and ended in 2007. Then, in the middle of the lecture, he pulls up this list of people and says "see that name at the bottom there! That is my aunt.  She was committed to an asylum! She was proclaimed as being an imbussel!" Needless to say, I think it runs in the family.

After class, my friends and I went into town to go shopping for our trip and get McDonald's for dinner.  Things were really looking up by this point.  When we got back and got to booking is when the real trouble began.  Our trip has changed completely.  ScotRail bumped every single ticket price up (except from Cardiff to Barry was still at an all time low of 1.95 pounds).  So, after 4 hours of exhaustive booking (and with ScotRail literally bumping up prices every 10 minutes...for real this happened to me) we formulated a plan.  We will be leaving Stirling tomorrow at 11 to catch a train that gets into Canterbury around 8:30.  Then, we will be going to Brighton.  From Brighton we will be going to Cardiff the next day, and Barry to spend the night.  Easter we will be leaving Cardiff to go to Birmingham where we will get a train back to Edinburgh and into Stirling by 10:30ish.  This is what we could do for the best price.  Here is what I learned today; ScotRail is not your friend, it only exists to screw you over.  When you see a good deal, book it.  Now, I will get off my soapbox as my 7th grade literature teacher would say, and am going to bed.  I won't be blogging again until Easter, but hopefully I will only have cool pictures to share and no tragic stories to tell.