Day 132, 18 May: Edinburgh Museums and the Underground City

Budget Backpackers Hostel, Edinburgh, Day 132. Edinburgh Museums and the Underground City

The Royal Mile (Matt was right: I DO feel like I'm in Harry Potter.)

The day began late morning, within the hour before check-out. Caitlin was sleeping on the floor of the 6-bed (3 bunk beds) hostel room, Joseph snoring, Vito sniffling, Nick as quiet as a dormouse, and me lazily having a vivid dream with a tense music atmosphere and odd architectural archways across a city half-resembling Edinburgh. Showered and packed and breakfasted (bread with jelly), we roamed the streets of Edinburgh—Caitlin, Joe, Vito, and I (Nick slept in a bit more since he’s not checking out of this hostel today). Caitlin and I decided to continue up to the Edinburgh Castle in the hellish wind and rain while Vito and Joe stayed around the shops. Once up at the Castle, we took pictures of the front and then walked back down. Paying to have a tour in stone-cold conditions wasn’t desirable.

            Once back down, we joined the boys in Primark Edinburgh—I found what I was looking for, a beanie. The tips of my ears had felt as frozen as  ice for the past hour. As we waited for Vito to finish shopping, I decided to run back first since it was nearing the hour I had planned to meet Nick back at the hostel. A quarter after one, I found Nick in the common room and another quarter hour later, we said our first round of good-byes to Joe and Vito. Grabbing our bags, we all left, parting once we made it to South Bridge: Joe and Vito to the bus stop for a ride to the airport (and then off to sunny and warm Barcelona—I learned later from Caitlin that there were to be thundershowers! Karma for bragging!), Caitlin to her High Street Hostel, and Nick and I to my new hostel, Budget Backpackers on Cowgate Street (there was no room for another night at the previous hostel). There’s a bit of a sting when it comes to farewells, even temporary ones. But I’ll see Joe and Vito again in Norwich.

St. Giles Cathedral

On our journey, Nick was the one to realize that we had passed Cowgate Street—without having seen it. We looked to the edge of the street: we were on a bridge and below us was Cowgate. Edinburgh, in a sense, has two floors.

Once at the hostel and my bags stowed away, I let Nick pick the first tourist sight to see—we decided to team up today since we both wanted to see the city’s museums. First was St. Giles Cathedral. Similar to a conversation I had with Katya in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, we talked about religion and the sense that it’s societally important but also that neither of us cling strongly to doctrine. Still, there is a spiritual vibe encapsulated there within the stained-glass windows and walls of a centuries-old church, the walls holding lists upon lists of war veterans particularly from world wars.

Nick playfully took a shot
of me doing the habitual
unbuttoning-of-my-coat-before
-a-camera-photo. This is in front
of the Writer's Museum sign.

Next was my pick: The Edinburgh Writers’ Museum. It’s located roughly in the area that the celebrated Scottish poet Robert Burns once held tenement oh so long ago. The other two writers exhibited were Sir Walter Scott (he wrote Waverley, the first book I had to read for Nineteenth Century Writing class this semester) and Robert Louis Stevenson (he wrote The Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in less than a week—utterly incredible). Nick found it amusing how all three of them had distinctive pipes and canes; the actual ones they carried were on display. Sir Scott’s was the longest. What a guy.

Museum for the Common Scot

We made a short stop to a fudge shop—Chocolate Peppermint was a good choice. It was now time for Nick’s remaining two sites: The People’s Story and The Edinburgh Museum. I found them vaguely interesting. The People’s Story was a museum devoted to the common man of Scotland. Apparently, as seen from the inscriptions and wall texts, Edinburgh has a rich history of labour unions and civil unrest especially in the industrializing eras—and a strong printing press culture that evaporated by the 1950s. As for The Edinburgh Museum, it seemed oddly organized and nothing stuck out to me as I recall it. Oh except for the wicked rifle rack which Nick pointed out and I joked, as if it was a household object of pride, ‘Oh, have you SEEN my gun rack?’

It turns out this was a Nicholson's Restaurant, like in Day 128.

We met up with Caitlin and her newly made friend Leah, who is at her new hostel. She is apparently from Canada near Nick’s province—small world. She has spent the last few days at her friends’ ranch in southern Scotland, and she told us grisly tales of animal stillbirths and then jolly ones (to make up for it) of a calving she witnessed. We all ordered our food at the famous pub, Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. Deacon Brodie is the real-life Jekyll and Hyde, the one Stevenson based his character off: he was respectable in the day and a thief by night (until he was caught and executed years later). Dinner was food (haha, I’m gonna keep the typo in), but I veered from the healthy path and went for the dark (or medium-cooked) side of a chorizo and boar burger with chips (fries).

We all decided to take the Underground City tour, a tour that shows the real Mary King’s Close. As Nick and I discovered earlier that day, a ‘close’ is a narrow alley and many are located on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The modern Mary King’s Close has literally been built over the original. The tour guide had a quipped tongue, clipping speeches of the city under the city. It was impressive: the stone rooms were kept in incredibly well-preserved conditions, there was a haunting wax figure of a plague doctor with a beak (the herbs inside the beak supposedly helped the doctor from getting the plague from the air), and just as Caitlin did NOT want to happen, there was a ghost story. The sudden striking of a stick at the end scared the living bejesus out of Leah. Overall I really found it interesting. These vaults are said to be possibly the most haunted in Britain, according to BBC in 2009. We all got a picture near the Close.

At this point, we all had to say goodbye. I won’t see Nick or Leah again in Europe and it made me sad, how people can come in and out of your life in a span of days or hours. But I never doubt that it’s worth it.

Leah, Caitlin, Nick, and Me