SCABs

A mega (bus) experience – By @laurenbodiam

By Lauren Bodiam

 

A mega (bus) experience

This holiday season our task at SCA among other things was about new experience. While I failed to get volunteer work over Christmas at a hospice or a homeless shelter I decided to go an extra mile and try to cram many of Marcs suggestions into one big mega experience. A mega bus. I am pessimistic about the journey I’m about to make, cramped seating toilet smells and plenty of passengers playing music without headphones.

travelling from London to Glasgow on a 9 hour journey I was bound face some experiences from peoples eating habits to the most unusual sleeping positions. This SCAB is a just a short snippet of what occurred.

10:40 20 minutes before departure there is a long queue forming at the gate of the coach, it reaches as far as the doors of Pret, there are people asking the back of the queue if this is a queue for Pret, they shake their head

10:46 if this was a Attenborough documentary we would all be crows, eyes intently on the bus, the woman at the front of the queue is slowly shuffling closer to the doors ready, waiting to pounce.

10:52: the doors open its like next opening their doors on boxing day 2006 there is running a man drops his bags and is left behind in the scurry.

10:54 a group of youths run up the stairs fags in hand and try to bag the back of the bus.

12:13 I can hear a conversation happening behind me between two people seated next together. They hadn’t known each other before boarding but are opening up with each other this extract was a personal favourite “I really hate Disney films, they teach you at a small age that you have a soul mate and a one true love. My friend thought he found the one and she went behind his back and cheated on him he found out through text messages. imagine thinking someone is the one and them doing that, thats why Disney films are bad they don’t show the cheating they only show happiness. I have a feeling this wasn’t quite about a friend but a personal experience, the tone was almost sad as he said these words.

14:00
We have passed several service stations and hunger is starting to kick in. Currently watching a woman eat what looks like the remainders of her left over Turkey from Christmas and a child to my right is getting through a whole Toblerone; maybe he has realised there isn’t going to be a stop anytime soon. I can only pray we stop somewhere soon so I’m not left eating the inside of my mouth or my poorly drawn scamps.

16:04
Reaching Manchester with no service stops, and a lack of paper to scamp I thought it could be a perfect opportunity to watch a film I wouldn’t normally before. It would take the extreme hunger off my mind. I chose Roma as it was a black and white film, Spanish with subtitles which meant I would have to watch it intently and hopefully get really into it. This did not happen. I can confidently say I can talk about the film without giving away any spoilers; as I only managed to get to the first 10 minutes. Netflix decided to crash and did not resume for the rest of the journey. What I did get from the first 10 minutes is

the film has beautiful shots there is a scene where the car is rehearsing in to a tight drive and honestly each shot off this as a still I would happily frame.

18:27 the bus has reached extreme levels of silence, I have woken to a bus filled with sleepers, each with their headphones in. The family to my right the oldest boy is slumped to the window with a head rest legs filling the seat next to him. The Mother her head rested in to her arms on the table next to the empty packet of Toblerone wonder if she’s dreaming of it, I know I was. Her other son head tilted right back mouth open wide. He’s definitely had a few spiders creep in to his mouth in his lifetime. A woman towards the back of the bus has her body slopped down the side of the chair. She does not look comfortable.

Stuck, unsure on what other experiences I can have, it’s now dark, the wifi is poor and my phone on 20% with the charger left in my case I turn to Hinge, flick through some old conversations. One of my old matches is a radio presenter he tends to play a lot of latin American electronic music. Here is my next experience. I listen to his show. It makes good pre drink music. I found it interesting that this sort of music isn’t listened or about so much in the UK because where as British music takes a lot of influence from African and Caribbean US does that Latino music. Latin culture is so prominent everywhere in the US that music blends from the society so you have music played in Latino communities alongside US mainstream electronic music.

Here are some of my favourite from the show:

Javier Arce Feat. Farmacos – Beibi
Mateo Kingman – Religar
Dengue Dengue Dengue – Semillero (Nicola Cruz Remix)

CDC – No Scrubs

20:11 I have reached my final destination and with the trip in mind I can confidently say I have experienced 24 hours without food or water. I have learnt when talking a mega bus it is essential to bring food and drink. I finish this SCAB running off the bus to find the nearest Greggs.

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