Into Scotland!

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I ate breakfast with Francis this morning and then she left. I took my time because my train didn’t leave until 9:55. I didn’t see Alex at all this morning so I left without saying goodbye. I returned my key card and headed to the rail station. When I got there, I waited for my train to Edinburgh. Most of the seats on the train were reserved, so I had to sit with this girl. It took about 2 and a half hours to get from York to Edinburgh. Once I got there I tried to find my hostel. It wasn’t very far at all, but I had to go uphill with my suitcase. Since I arrived too early at the High Street Hostel, I left my luggage there and decided to catch a train to Glasgow. I had been told by a lot of people that it wasn’t very great but since I had some time and already using my rail pass for the day, I decided to go. I spent about two hours there and then left. It wasn’t really that interesting. I did see my first police box, which was pretty cool. I didn’t have a map or anything so I didn’t really know what to do. I got back to Edinburgh around 6 and headed to my hostel to check in. I had to carry my suitcase up a couple of flights of stairs which wasn’t fun. Once I got into my room, I noticed that there were no plugs and I was on the top bunk. Normally the top bunk is okay, but this one didn’t have any railing. I spent the whole night worried I would fall off. The girls I met in bath told me about Sandeman’s Dark Side tour and free walking tour. I decided to go on the Dark side tour which started at 9 and was 8 pounds for a student. They ended up having one English group and two Spanish groups. My tour guide was Sabela. She is from Spain and absolutely hysterical. I ended up meeting a girl from Alaska named Erin. The tour last about two hours and we went all over New and Old Edinburgh. Since it was the dark side, it focused on grave robbers, murders, witch burnings, and all of that fun history of Edinburgh. Back in the old days people would throw their sewage out of the window. People would walk on the streets and someone would yell and then throw it out the window. Most people would get out of the way, but when men were drunk they would just look up when someone yelled. Since they were drunk, they couldn’t get out of the way in time, so they would get splattered all over with sewage. This is where the term “shit face drunk” comes from ( excuse the word). One day, some clever Scottish bloke decided that at 10 p.m. everyone would do it all at once. Since it rains so much, a river out of the sewage formed on the outskirts of the city. If you were a lazy wife, a drunk woman, a thief, or concealed a pregnancy, you would be punished by being dipped in the “river”. They would also throw people being accused of witch craft into the river to drown. Edinburgh also had a problem with grave robbing. The medical school would pay 10 pounds for a fresh new body, but since people believed you had to have a proper Christian burial, the medical school never got a lot of bodies. The average pay a month was about 2 pounds. This made some people go out and dig up fresh bodies to sell for 10 pounds. Some times, the grave robbers actually found people who were still alive but had been buried because they looked like they were dead at the time. This incentive for money also made two guys, Burke and Hare, become more clever than grave robbing. They actually murdered 17 people to get the rewards for the fresh bodies. We also walked up to Calton Hill, where they used to burn witches. If you had red hair that meant you were a witch, so of course in Scotland many were killed because they were a witch. On top of Calton Hill stands three monuments that are called the three fails. The first looks like an unfinished Parthenon. Edinburgh wanted to be the Athens of the north, so they started building a Parthenon. They ran out of money though, so they didn’t finish it. They ended up building a ruin. Next to it is a big Astronomical laboratory. There are certain places were you shouldn’t build an Astronomical laboratory, like in a cloudy place or by the sea. Edinburgh happens to be in both, so the laboratory never worked out. The last epic fail is a big tower that is supposed to let the sailors at the sea know what time it is. Everyday at five minutes to one, a ball on the top goes up. At one, it falls down letting them know the time. The problem is that the ball is so small you can barely see it standing up on the hill next to it. There is no way someone standing at the sea could even see it. There was so much more covered on the tour that I ended up learning so much. It was definitely a great experience and I highly recommend it! I can’t wait to go on the free walking tour tomorrow! Until then,

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Photos

My hostel

Glasgow

Calton Hill