Edinburgh In 5 Seconds

Because the prequel is a 10 day course for 3 credits, we are constantly “in class”. That being said although we do have a conference room that doubles as our “classroom,” most of the learning is done outside. We visited castles, museums, universities, parks, etc. Fifty percent of the learning is historical and the other fifty percent is cultural. Therefore when we go to a museum, for example, we don’t just learn about what the museum houses, but also about the architecture, its surroundings, how the people of Scotland view the building, etc.

Monday, January 9th, we went to go see parliament and although there still is an original building (of what actually used to be an aristocrats home), most of it is very modern. There is a motif of bamboo and stone and the windows open up in one direction towards the mountains and the Scottish land and in the other direction towards the city and the Scottish people. From there we walked the Royal Mile which reaches from the Palace of Holyrood (the Queen’s living quarters when she’s in Scotland) & Parliament to Edinburgh Castle.

 

 

Monday night we went on a tour of the Underground Vaults of Old Town Edinburgh. The vaults are a series of chambers formed in the late 18th century when the South Bridge was built to expand the growing town. The vaults were used to house taverns, cobblers and other tradesmen. When New Town was built in the turn of the century the vaults were abandoned by the businesses and where filled by the poor. The chambers became a slum for the lower class. Crime, disease and murder became common among the vaults. The vaults were also notorious for Burke and Hare, the infamous serial killers who sold corpses found in the Underground Vaults to medical schools.

While I am there, I really enjoy the vaults and the mystery and eeriness that surrounds it. I jump back and forth between being in the back of the group and racing ahead. At the times when I trail slowly behind, I duck into the dark side rooms that the group has bypassed and squint into the dark corners trying to find some lost treasure that has gone unseen by the many professional excavators that I’m sure have been down here countless amounts of times. If I don’t find a bone or ceramic chip that hasn’t been touched since the early 18^th century, I yearn to at least feel a ghostly presence. Not that I believe in ghosts, because I don’t, however I long to be, in some way, connected to the past and to history. I feel nothing however besides exhilaration as I quickly race ahead to lead the group into the next room. Whether we are standing in one room listening to the stories or if we are walking from room to room, I find myself constantly fighting the urge to blow out the candles. For fear of being caught (although what can happen besides being told I shouldn’t do that?) I settle with teasing the lights instead, lightly blowing them until they flare and flicker.

"you may think that these were the good 'ole days, but not down here they weren't"