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Here Comes the Sun. Good Day Sunshine. Sun sun sun. I was insane for it. Good thing I don't live in the Pacific Northwest. Ammmmi right?!
I had something I could laugh about. After my lovely pastry from the grocer, I headed down Princes Street to find whatever was out there... like a Ferris wheel! A Ferris wheel right next to the botanical gardens, mate. I was giddy with the vibrant colors.
My knee was wrecked from my 10 mile walk the day before so I got myself right on up to the Royal Mile to wait for the tour of the Real Mary King's Close! Haunted! Creeepy! Mary King was a widow and linen merchant in the Middle Ages and the close is named after her.
A close, you remember, is an extremely tight alley. Closes in this part of town are a steep descent from the Royal Mile to the street below. To make way for the building of the Royal Exhchange, buildings and stories at street level were knocked down while the lower levels was used as a foundation for the new structure. This covered area, which includes Mary King's close as well as a
series of other alleys and buildings, lay untouched for centuries until the late 1990s, when a tourist business was built around it.
Medieval life was wretched for the impoverished people living in this narrow close. Windows were taxed so few families had the luxury of natural light in their overcrowded and cramped spaces. Loo buckets dumped human waste into the steep street, where it flowed downhill. Neighbors shared front entrances; people often had to go through a neighbor's home to get their own. Cattle shared the living space as well and their refuse joined the rest.
Then there was the plague of 1645, which took half the population of Edinburgh. Legend has it that this part of town was bricked off, forcing 300 residents to perish, infected or not! I've read that this may be a myth but it's too good a story to leave out!
There are also stories of children left behind so as not to infect families. The death took less than a week to take its victims.
We heard two ghost tales on the tour. One was about plague victims appearing to a family that moved in after the disease had left
the city. People with missing body parts, or just the parts themselves would appear out of nowhere.
Another story was that of a small girl who appeared in the mid 1990s to a psychic exploring the very chambers where the girl had lived centuries before. She was crying that she'd misplaced her doll and was inconsolable. The psychic went up to the street and bought her a doll, and the apparition disappeared. Now visitors bring a doll to the place where she was seen. The dust covered pile of toys is a grim sight.
We weren't allowed to take pictures here but you can find them online easily enough.
Back in my neighborhood, where none of us have the plague, I went to the pub downstairs and had a delicious mug of haggis, neeps,and tatties and a pint. You know I ordered it because I only recognized one of the ingredients. NEEPS! It was delicious!
People here don't tend to hang out alone, and when they're together they aren't constantly on their devices. Therefore, I felt a little out of place by myself on my kindle. It was date night and I didn't want to thwart
any bloomin' relations so I left pretty early to finish the book upstairs.
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