When I was a kid, in the late nineties, my parents gave me the best gift you can give to an eighteen-year-old: an Interrail pass to jump on any train I wanted, for a month, across Europe. It’s something that many of us who grew up in the eighties and nineties ended up doing when we came of age, and I believe those of us lucky enough to enjoy it—or the guts and courage to embark on such a journey—are made of a different kind of wood.
During that summer of ’99 I slept on trains, ate cans of tuna, traveled with home on my back, showering very little and discovering something that would never leave me: travel makes our lives bigger. I fell in love forever with Paris, London taught me to think differently, I fell at the feet of Rome and in Prague I discovered how a city can be magical. But, when the decision to “go up” to Scotland had to be made, we had to leave it for another occasion.
–Edinburgh? No. It’s very far.
Recuerdo que fue una idea que yo no compartí, pero que tuve que acatar. Es una de las muchas cosas que te enseña viajar: a veces, tienes que dar tu brazo a torcer.
Y así fui conociendo Europa. Y así fui descubriendo el mundo. Y así me fui convirtiendo en el hombre que soy ahora. Pero Edimburgo y Escocia seguían sin llegar a mi vida.
–Ya iré a Edimburgo.
Los años pasaban, pero Escocia se hacía de rogar. Hace unos meses, por fin, llegó el momento.
–Nunca es tarde–, me digo a mí mismo a diez mil metros de altura mientras mi avión cruza el Canal de la Mancha. Y es que Edimburgo, de esperar, sabe mucho.
