✻ if you feel like disappearing... | scotland part i [5th pink moon]

I embarked on a 4-day trip with my mother to Scotland in order to visit the University of St Andrews on their offer holders day, having received an offer in December last year for an MPhys in Physics with Astrophysics. I haven't decided yet if I want to go to Britain for my post-bac studies due to the exorbitant prices for international students (30k £/year—admittedly cheaper than London unis and Oxbridge, but in Scotland an undergrad degree is 4 years whereas in England it's 3 so it evens out), so this visit would hopefully enlighten me as to my decision.

In true British fashion, the moment we stepped off the plane at Edinburgh we were greeted by the chilly rain, which, unsurprisingly, immediately gave me a migraine. I say unsurprisingly because since I was 13 I'm liable to get migraines whenever I'm tired/cold/dehydrated/menstruating. From Edinburgh, we took a bus in the direction of of Fife, then stopped at Halbeath to take another one that would bring us right to the town centre of St Andrews.

My first impression of the Scottish landscape, as viewed from the window of a Stagecoach bus:
Solitary.
Beautiful, in an undisturbed way.
Each of the three buses I was in had no more than ten people in it, us included. On the hills abundantly grew bushes of vibrant yellow flowers I later learned called Gorse, and the umber, upturned earth was sectioned off into rectangles by stout cobblestone hedges. These boundaries didn't bother the crows though; a group of them huddled on the stone, while others hopped from one side to the other, picking at the ground for seeds or worms. I suppose birds know no borders, nor do they need them.
The drowsy tranquility of the bus, the endless rural landscape under the rain, the dull pain of the migraine and the adrenaline-filled wonder of being in a new place taking over my head in turns—all came together to paint an unprecedented landscape. In that moment I was reminded of the 2017 film God's Own Country, when (spoiler!) protagonist Johnny, full of apprehension, is on a bus to Scotland to find his lover Gheorghe in hopes of making up with him and convincing him to return to Johnny's farm with him.. It's a very tender and realist love story, with lots of unspoken emotions.

Something on the bus ticket (receipt?) intrigued me. As you can see in the picture, it said at the top, ‘If you feel like disappearing [...] Call the free helpline’. This made me wonder if people running away or going missing is a serious problem in Scotland, to the point of having public service announcements being printed on bus tickets. It was really quite jarring to see it written plainly like that, and me made feel, for the first time since landing in Scotland, that I was in a country whose society was different from mine. In France, you don't hear much about people running away from home; I think there's less of a culture of independency.
The thing that makes this sad is that it doesn't come as a surprise. I could see it happening, when the winters grow bleak and you just can't stand your life anymore. Leave everything behind, hop on a NightRider and fade into the moor...