Storming the castle...

My head throbbed as I pulled on my warm fleece before walking out into the crisp Scottish air. Over a half-dozen people from different countries congregated around a weather beaten bench as snippets of stories of the night before drifted around our small crowd. Struggling to gain our morning composure we began our tract to the Buchanan Bus Station to catch the 10:00am bus to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Only minutes into the bus ride I fell fast asleep leaning up against a chilled window, with heat from my head steaming the glass. My Ipod lulled me into the eminent trance with tunes from Johnny Cash. It was an hour and fifteen minute bus ride to the Edinburgh City Center, though it only seemed like a few minutes later I awoke to The Killers while blinking into the fogged glass at the sight of Edinburgh Castle perched high atop a vibrantly green hill.

Departing the bus (or coach, as they call it in Scotland) we headed north through winding cobblestone streets and steep walkways to the castle. A man dressed as William Wallace stood on a corner taking donations for Leukemia research. He has reportedly amassed over 1,000,000 lbs in donations over the years!! A few of the girls from Spain in our group posed for a picture and we donated our lbs.

Moving onward we approached the castle gates. It was 10 lbs to go on. We paid our dues and continued walking up the cobblestone lane before us. Laying behind were the remnants of the Military Tattoo Festival. Stadium style seats were still being disassembled. Laying ahead of us were the castle walls, which held back the inspiring views of the city below. We climbed up onto a walkway to get a few glimpses of the scenery. The city stretched outward for a few miles before meeting the North Sea. It was beginning to turn into quite a sunny day, the light reflected off the sea giving the warmth of the sun a more impressive presence.

Edinburgh castle is built on top of an extinct Volcano. Black jagged rocks spit forth the castle foundations. Evidence of the Volcanic rock is everywhere around the castle. You can follow the volcanic stone throughout, leading to more winding paths that give even more dramatic views of the city beneath.

We descended into a steep stairwell leading to the dungeon. It was dark and dismal, just as you would imagine. Stone, iron, and wood adorned the cramped room. Hammocks tied up to wood pillars in tiers were where the prisoners would sleep. This was a place where dozens of people were locked up at a time, and where many perished over the years.

After the prison we went into the safest room in the castle, the room that holds Scotland's Crown Jewels and The Stone of Destiny. The Stone is where Scottish Kings have been crowned for an unknown amount of time. It is shrouded in mystery, but it is believed to date back to around 400 AD. It was stolen by England centuries ago and kept at Westminster Abbey up until 1996 when it was returned back to Scotland.

Leaving the castle I reluctantly had lunch at McDonald's of Edinburgh. We hiked all the way back down the mountainous hillside to the American oasis. Consistency is everything, and it tasted like Mc$h1T, the same as home!! The interesting thing was how Edinburgh keeps its architectural style and stuffs a McDonald's into an old world style building. By the way, it was like 4 lbs for lunch, which is like $8.

By now it was beginning to get later into the afternoon and I had one place left I wanted to visit before leaving. Real Mary King's Close. We hiked back up the winding streets to The Royal Mile, and High Street; the entrance to the Close.

Mary King's Close is an ancient city beneath the city. Edinburgh was literally built right on top of old houses and streets leaving a dark labyrinth of history stored in the city basement. Here crime and murder thrived. Original painted floral patterns from the 17th century can be seen on the walls of one home. This underground memorial is home to the ghost of Annie, a girl who died years ago before the old town was covered.

I must go in reverse for a moment. At the beginning of the tour a woman who was in our group, with her family, said she saw a small child with long, curly, dark hair in the previous room. The girl disappeared, and the woman was clearly in distress. It kind of freaked all of us out, including our guide. This is when our tour guide began to inform us of the ghost of Annie, but he saved the whole story until we arrived at her home.

We traveled down steps and old roadways between buildings to finally arrive at Annies home. If you look above while walking down the buried streets, you can see water pipes that keep the top city alive. Beneath the city where we were, was dead. This brings me back to Annie. The guide crowded us all into one small room, in the corner was a shrine of toys piled nearly 3 foot high. A decade ago a Japanese clairvoyant came into Mary King's Close and was visited in this room by a little girl who was left here to die by herself. Apparently she had been sick with the Black Plague, and her family locked her inside the house by herself. The clairvoyant was so moved by this that she went up onto High Street and bought a small doll to leave in the room for Annie. This has spurred people from around the world to visit and bring toys to leave for Annie. When the toy pile gets to big they gather them up and give them to charity, save one, the doll that the Japanese woman left.

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