ScOtLaNd: DaY OnE- EdInBuRgH

Friday, November 7th

I left today for a weekend trip to Scotland. I woke up at 4:50 in order to walk to the tube station, and get to King’s Cross train station (where I got my first glimpse of Platform 9 ¾) by 5:45. We made it with time to spare, and were shortly on our way to Edinburgh, Scotland. The trip was set up to spend Friday in Edinburgh, Saturday in the highlands, and Sunday in Edinburgh again before departing back to London that evening.

The train ride was about five hours, directly to Edinburgh Waverly Station. I got a bit of journaling done on the ride and enjoyed the view of the countryside. The coach had free WiFi and Cody brought her labtop with her, so she let us all go on for a little bit. It was exciting for me because I received an e-mail saying that I would be able to go back to work at the pre-press/design firm that I worked at this summer, over Christmas break. I am sooo excited. I loved working there, both because of the work I did, and the amazing people within the company. I was pretty excited, and I’m sure I annoyed my friends for a few minutes due to my excitement upon receiving the news. :)

When we arrived, we took a two hour bus tour of the city lead by ‘an official, blue badge, kilted guide.’ The first place he took us to was Holyrood Palace, where he lead us to the front gate playing a bagpipe, all of us trailing behind him. Here he told the story of Mary Queen of Scots. She was almost literally born into the throne, being named queen at age 5, moved to France to grow up safely, and came back to rule Scotland later in life. She was later put on trial for treason and decapitated, but it took three blows to fully accomplish the job. Apparently the guard picked up her head, and since she was wearing a wig, it rolled off into the crowd, and once he picked it up once more, her face was facing the crowd, eyes spinning in her head. Our guide told the story most vividly…

We drove past where Adam Smith, the famous economist, was buried and his residence of the past 12 years of his life. He wrote the ‘Wealth of Nations’ which was printed in 1776, and was… kind of a big deal. Later in the day, my fellow business student friend, Colin, and myself took pictures in front of the Adam Smith Monument.

We drove through James V park, which was the private hunting grounds of James V, drove down the Royal Mile, past the Museum of Scotland, and the University of Scotland. We got a good view of Edinburgh Castle, and St. Andrew’s Square (the patron saint of Scotland). I also learned that Sean Connery and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were both born here, in addition to Alexander Graham Bell, who invented telephones. Also residing in Edinburgh was Lord Byron, the Scottish poet who married Mary Wallstonecraft (author of Frankenstien), and Maxwell, one of Einstien’s influences. We drove past St. Mary’s Cathedral, and got to see tons of the city’s beautiful architecture. It is filled with Georgian and Gothic architectural splendor… and it makes me very happy. :)

After the bus tour, we checked into our hotel. Again, not bad at all! We dropped off our things, and walked down the street to TESCO to grab some lunch and then were on our way to wander through town and explore the greatness of Edinburgh. We made our way down to the Royal Mile (the ‘State Street’ of the city), where we went in and out of many souvenir shops, and the fringe theatre store, before exploring the sites. Cody and I purchased a set of bag pipes and decided to accompany a kilted bag-piper alongside the road on our way to the castle.

We decided not to tour the castle today because it was getting dark soon, so we went into a Scottish Whiskey distillery to take part in the ‘Scottish Whiskey Experience.’ The original tour includes a ride through wooden barrels through the distillery, with a sample of the whiskeys at the end, however, due to construction, we were unable to do this… I was thoroughly disappointed. However, we sat through a presentation and were able to sample some at the end, taking home souvenir glasses as well.

After the whiskey sampling, we walked another block to the castle and stood outside of the fortress while Cody ‘played us a song’ on our new purchases. A lady came out of the front gates and told us we needed to leave the premises due to a function going on later in the evening, however, I attribute it to the deathly sounds coming from our instrumental party…

We wandered down to the other end of the Royal Mile, toward the Holyrood Palace and saw several interesting things on our way. One was a restaurant called ‘Jenny Ha’s’ which I found a bit comical, and we also saw several other interesting tourist shops, and the very modern, and unique architecture of the Scottish Parliament building.

We stopped to eat some traditional pub food in a pub called ‘World’s End.’ Here, we started off with some Scottish Haggis for an appetizer. Apparently this is the big deal here, along with deep fried mar or snickers bars. Here are the contents for Haggis:
Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish.
There are many recipes, most of which have in common the following ingredients: sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours.
I decided to contrast my traditional appetizer, the my touristy main course meal: the William Wallace burger. This burger consisted of 6 ounces of burger, ham, and BBQ goodness. Oh boy! I proudly conquered the gargantuan meal.

When we finished our dinner, Colin and Cody decided to go back to the hotel, and Rachael and myself decided to stay out on the town. We wanted to take the City of the Dead: Haunted Graveyard Tour, so we met up with that at 8:30. Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, and is home to the Makenzie Poltergeist, so that is what this tour explored.

The lady in charge of it did a really good job of getting into it. She started off by telling us about the witch trials in the area years ago, and then told us about the Makenzie Poltergeist and the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby. We wandered through the graveyard lawns and she told us more about the plague and how people were buried alive because the conception of a coma wasn’t completely understood. The answer to this was to have a hole with a string attached to a bell at the top of the grave, allowing the person who was buried alive to ring it, and be saved. This developed the phrases ‘saved by the bell’ and ‘grave ringers.’ We were told that it was impossible to know when you were standing on a grave or not because bodies were buried in masses everywhere, and the reason that it was so hilly, was because there were such expanses of burials, piled on top of each other. Apparently, years ago, in periods of lots of rain, sometimes bodies would sludge out of the region, and flow into the city grounds.

This graveyard was also inspiration to many writers. It helped to develop the story of Jekyl and Hyde, Mary Wollstonecraft’s Frankenstein, Ebenezer Scrooge, the musical Cats, and J.K. Rowling’s villain Tom Riddle, or Lord Voldemort.

Later, we were directed to form two lines, and the men were separated from the women, and then all placed into a dark dungeon. Before we entered, she asked us two questions by means of a blind vote: have you had any experiences with a spirit? And do you think you are the reason of an attack by a dark spirit? The woman explained the ways of the poltergeist to us, and some of the stories from the past. She told us that these dark spirits have a tendency to attack the more vulnerable subjects, and often houses with high tension and with lots of girls.

I though that she was going to lock the gate of the tomb we were in and run away, leaving us there for a while, but what really happened, right at the peak of the tension, was a dark figure jumping in to scare us. As far as I know, there were no attacks by the poltergeist that night, but I know that on this tour in the past, there definitely were. Apparently, people feel things when they are in the tomb, and wake up the next day with gashes and bruises, without having known it the night before.

After the tour, we walked down the Royal Mile to a pub that we stopped by earlier in the evening. Rachael and I got a drink and watched some traditional Scottish music. There was a 6 or so piece string ensemble playing some lovely music, and I absolutely loved it. I don’t know what it is, but there is something about music that, well, just completes me. Sounds cheesy, but I don’t care. It is absolutely true. :)

I would have liked to purchase an album from the group, however it was just an open jam session, not an organized group. After listening for a while longer, we decided to head out and get packed up for our journey to the highlands tomorrow.