Hello again from London!
So my flatmates and few others decided to pack our bags and take a trip over to Edinburgh, Scotland for the weekend! I had personally never planned on going to Scotland while being over here. Not that I’m not a fan of Scotland, I just never pictured it as someplace that I would want to visit. But my flatmates all wanted to go, so I said, “Why not? Let’s do it!”
I’ll probably split this up into two separate posts, otherwise this will turn into a novel. So be on the lookout for the next post about our trip soon!
We started off the weekend by simply exploring the area, going to different shops and walking around the town. We then ended up at the National Art Museum of Scotland, where we got to see some magnificent painting, along with a couple pieces from Van Gogh himself.
One really cool part of the town that we got to see that day was the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, which is a little dog statue right outside of Greyfriars Cemetery. This little statue is actually one of the biggest attractions of Edinburgh, surprisingly! The dog that the star was built in memoriam of is famous for having sat by his owner’s grave for fourteen years. The dog was incredibly well known, and when he passed away, he was buried outside of the cemetery and had a star for him. Apparently, it’s good luck to rub the nose of little Bobby, so the statue’s bronze has started to rub off due to everyone touching it, as you can see in the photo. I still went ahead and rubbed his nose anyway. A little bit of extra luck never hurt anyone!
We ended the day going on a “haunted” ghost tour of some parts of the city. Edinburgh is apparently known as the most haunted city in the world, so of course the smartest thing to do, we decided, was to visit those haunted locations when it was dark! Aren’t we the smartest?
Our tour took us into the catacombs underneath one of the bridges of the city, where apparently many poor people lived. Back then, hundreds of years ago, Edinburgh didn’t really care for the poor population, and forced them out of the city. Except those people didn’t have anywhere to go, so they decided to live underneath the city. Obviously, the living conditions were terrible. So terrible, that the life span for a ten-year-old child down there was only 4 months.
To me, this history was more fascinating than any ghost that supposedly haunted the place. But, the ghosty side of things was entertaining as well. Our tour guide was constantly trying to scare us, popping out from behind doors, making us all turn off our flashlights so he could jump out and scare us. That was more terrifying than the potential ghosts to me!
Our next stop was at the cemetery. Here, we learned about some more, well, gross history of Edinburgh. I won’t go into too much detail, but back then, so many executions were happening, and the city was running out of places to put the bodies of the people they killed. So, they decided to utilize them. I don’t know how much of this is true, but according to out guide, they would sometimes take the bones of the people they killed, crush them up, and mix them into mortar to use to help build the buildings in the area. Apparently, about 60% of Edinburgh castle is held together by bone. Yuck!
One really interesting part of the graveyard is actually a prison camp. We found out that it was actually the first prison camp built within Scotland, and was used to prison males who refused to follow the Episcopalian church. If someone refused to follow the church, he was sent there until he starved to death. Stepping behind those gates was bizarre, knowing what happened hundreds of years ago.
We were all led into one of the cells, where a supposed poltergeist resides. Not just any poltergeist, but a misogynist poltergeist. Rumor has it that hundreds of people, mostly women have actually been knocked out in that cell, and more have left with mysterious scratches or marks. Now I can’t say how much of that I believe, but it’s still pretty creepy stepping inside a prison cell after being told all this information. And, yeah, he made us turn off our flashlights. Again. (I think this guy enjoyed creeping us out a bit too much)
So that was our first day in Edinburgh! Again, I’ll be posting another post about our second day there, so keep an eye out for that!
Have a blessed day!!
In the life of ash 