So one of the things about being an exchange student that I'm really enjoying is that even though I'm just another student/Edinburgh resident, I'm also a tourist to a certain extent. I've been unapologetically taking advantage of this, and balancing studying and going out with trips to museums and other touristy spots.
Last Saturday, one of my flatmates and I decided to check out Mary King's Close: a series of underground streets that were populated by over 700 people during the 17th century. The tour was conducted by a 3rd-person costumed historian, which means our guide was in costume and had a 17th century identity, but spoke from the present day. (For example: "This is my house, which I share with 12 other people. This is very common, and...If you live here during the 17th century, it would have been..." I did this type of interpretation at Hartwell Tavern in Lincoln, and it's a great way to deal with large groups and foreign visitors.)
Disclaimer: Photos aren't allowed on tour, so these are from the company's website
The tour took us through many anecdotes of life in the close (a close is a narrow street in between tall city buildings, some of which are still usable cut-throughs for pedestrians in Edinburgh), including a story about a murder that occurred in one of the houses, an account of ghosts, and what life was like there during the Plague. My favorite story was about Mary King, the woman whom the close was named after. Traditionally closes were named after their wealthiest resident, but Mary was actually the second wealthiest resident in the close. It was named after her because she was a burgess (a tax-paying member of society who was eligible to vote), which was extremely rare for women of that time!
This picture is of another room in the close which was really interesting-but it didn't look exactly like this when we were there (there are more toys now). One of the areas we went into was an original 17th century house, with the original walls and ceiling, made out of a mixture of water, dirt, and human ash. The history dork in me was really excited about this! The story goes that in the 1990s a psychic from Japan came to visit the close, and when she entered one particular room in the house she was filled with the sensation of overwhelming sadness. In the corner of the room she saw a little girl, who told her that her name was Annie and that she had been left there by her family, who had died of the Plague. The reason she was sad was because she had lost her toy dog. So the psychic went up to the Royal Mile and purchased a tartan barbie in one of the tourist shops. When she placed it in the room, she said that the feeling of sadness disappeared.
Over the years people have left all sorts of toys and gifts for Annie in the room, and there's a big mountain of them now. That was really neat to see as well. In March the close hosts "Ghost Fest"-I may need to check it out.
Another museum I've been to recently was the Surgeon's Hall Museum, which was recommended by my history tutorial leader. I thought it sounded really interesting, and I walk past the building all the time so I was curious to see inside. What I didn't count on (which seems really stupid now) was that a museum about medical history would mean lots of preserved body parts. EW! Really not my thing-although nothing bothered my quite as much as the exhibit about facial deformities and tumers; the parasites; and the 18th century child's head in a jar...bonnet and all. YUCK.
Similarly, no pictures inside Surgeon's Hall. These are from tourism sites.
However, I'm still glad I went. There were several really interesting exhibits about the history of surgery, and two that were particularly exciting. The first was about Burke and Hare, Edinburgh serial killers from the 1820s who lured victims into Hare's boarding house and suffocated them. They would then sell the bodies to Dr. Robert Knox, who would dissect them in demonstrations for students at Edinburgh Medical School.
In 11 months, the pair killed 17 people. Apparently, this is where the term "burking" comes from, and it means to purposely smother someone. When the men were arrested in fall of 1828, there wasn't enough evidence to convict. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, Hare confessed, leaving Burke to be tried alone. I think the final ruling was actually kind of perfect-Burke was condemned to death by hanging (which was very common for murderers at the time), and the to have his body publicly dissected (which is not). Poetic justice, don't you think?
Among the things in the Burke and Hare exhibit at the museum are a plaster cast of Burke's head (post-hanging; you can see the rope marks in his neck!), the skull of one of the victims they sold to Knox, and a wallet made out of Burke's skin (called a pocket-book or purse in the UK). On the front it says "Burke's Skin Pocket-Book" and on the back "Executed 28 Jan 1829."
The Burke and Hare murders have been inspiration for tons of fiction, including a short story by fellow Edinburgh resident Robert Louis Stevenson (The Body Snatchers), and several movies. In fact, there's a new Burke and Hare movie (it's supposed to be a dark comedy) coming out in the UK on October 29th, and it was filmed right here in Edinburgh!
Here's the trailer:
The other exhibit I really liked was called "The Real Sherlock Holmes." Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical student at Edinburgh, and apparently he based Holmes on one of his professors, Joseph Bell (in addition to a few other Edinburgh figures.)
Many of Bell's items are on display, as well as a map of the several buildings Doyle lived in. One of them, 23 George Square, is now on campus! I was very excited about that. There was also a section on the real Doctor Watson, who was an Edinburgh figure as well. He wrote a book about medicine and violent crime, which was on display along with three preserved hearts he used in his studies, each with a stab wound. Those were really cool.
So definitely worth the price of admission, but I don't think I'll be heading back any time soon.
*Scottish people don't really sound like this, but it's the stereotypical accent.
Tomorrow I'm going to a residence event and I have a paper due Monday, so I decided to take today and finish it at the library so all I have to do tomorrow is edit. Naturally, as it's a Saturday, I had some trouble getting motivated. So I decided to include some self-bribery, and stopped at the Central Library (the main branch of the public library located on George IV Bridge) to check out The Alienist, which I've been meaning to read on my dad's recommendation.
There are three different routes I can take to get to the library, but because it was a beautiful morning I decided to take the one that spends the majority of the walk on the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile, which stretches from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace (thus the name), is probably the most touristy area of the city. But I love all the weird little shops and pubs and people in capes advertising ghost tours. So I headed off up the hill listening to "Paperback Writer" on my iPod, which is kind of my paper-writing tradition. As I hit the Mile, I noticed a lot of police around and the road was closed. I figured there was some sort of event happening and disregarded it, intent on my destination. Then, over the sound of the Fab Four in my headphones, I noticed the sound of drums from up ahead...
I stepped over to the curb where people were lining the road and took out an earbud. Yep, there were definitely bagpipes approaching. So I joined the rest of the crowd to watch to approaching wave of kilts:
I'm still not sure exactly what was happening. Behind the band was a modern army regiment, and they were heading in the direction of Holyrood, so my guess was they were mustering at the palace for some reason. Regardless, it was a really nice way to start off my day. There's nothing like getting ready to write a paper about Scottish history surrounded by masses waving Scottish flags and cheering for their national army!
Oh, and they have an ADORABLE mascot:
After the parade went by I did eventually make it to the library, where there was a three-ish year old boy battling and inflatable Dalek (a notorious Doctor Who villain) with a foam devil trident thing and a plastic spider.
And yes, I did get my paper written :)
P.S. Trivia question!! Does anybody know where the title of this entry came from? (Hint: it has to do with the boy in the library)
It turns out that so far, Monday is the only day of the week I have to be anywhere before noon. I know, I know, whine whine whine. But I spent all day in the library doing homework, and as a result am all amped up. Yes, I am actually that much of a dork. I had a study party for Library Part II with my friend from SLC who is also here, and she and I both whined about the lack of academic discussion. But so far my classes are super interesting, and I start tutorials tomorrow which should help.
Anyways, in order to help myself wind down, I decided to update. I climbed Arthur's Seat, which is an 823 foot hill in Holyrood Park, located in the central area of the city. It was quite the climb, but absolutely gorgeous. I got a ton of great pictures of the city and some of the landscape, and I'm thinking about going back to explore more of the park next weekend if it's not too cold (according to my thermometer, it's currently 39 F). I've been writing a lot of text-heavy posts, so consider this light reading :)
We started by following a pretty steep path up the Salisbury Craigs, which run through the park and allow access to the higher peaks.
This is Holyroodhouse Palace, the current Scottish residency for the British royal family. On the day we went hiking, the queen was actually in residence due to the upcoming Pope visit. The big tent on the lawn was for the reception, I think. This was from about 1/4 of the way up.
This was...not comforting.
The hardest part of the whole hike was the very beginning, when we climbed the craigs. When that flattened out for a bit, we felt so accomplished. It also seemed pretty high! I was definitely in an "embrace my city" mood.
More of the park, which I'd love to go back and explore. We picked a beautiful day to go, which helped, but it was incredibly windy! Don't let the fluffy clouds fool you.
The path we took up to the peaks. The people on the path were actually running up to the top. I don't think I'll ever be in shape enough to do that.
Faster than I expected, we made it to the top! There were moments I thought we were going to be blown right off, but it was really beautiful. We could even see the ocean at the edges of the city.
The peaks. At the very left is the marker that shows the very top of Arthur's Seat, with the height and longitude/latitude on it.
In order to get to the Seat, we had to go over a big hill that reminded me of the Sound of Music. I might have sung a little bit of it, too, but I'm not totally owning up to that. When we looked down at the hill from the top, we could see messages people had written with the stones that littered it. My favorites were the birthday messages: Happy 50th, Happy 60th...it's definitely a great thing to do for a big birthday!
And also a chance for travelers to leave their mark.
Earlier I posted about how much I'm enjoying my Gaelic class. I don't have the language section again until Monday, so I've been investigating some ways to practice. Did you know the BBC has an entire Gaelic-speaking channel for TV and Radio? It's called BBC Alba, which is the Gaelic word for Scotland. I'm going to try watching some shows (they have subtitles) later on to practice my pronunciation. Here's a clip on youtube, so Americans can watch it, of the weather and sports in Gaelic:
Well, I've almost completed my first full week of classes and am still alive. I'm also feeling much better, which is nice. I'm much more happy being social when I don't feel like I've got the plague. So far this week things have taken on an easy pattern: library and classes during the day, errands and time to myself in the afternoon, gym classes, out with my flatmates/friends in the evenings. This is in general really nice, but sometimes it feels like I'm not meeting very many people. This is, I think, my first taste of what a big university is like. I don't run into people I've met at events very often when I'm around on campus, because with 28,000 undergraduates the school is just too big for those coincidences to happen very often. So I'm making a big effort to go out, get involved, and meet people. I've made friends (lest this sounds too morose!), and we're adventuring together which is also nice.
Tuesday was my big night out, where my friend Emily and I went to the first EU Psychology Society event to register and meet some of the other members. It felt very classy; we all stood around drinking wine and discussing our classes and interests, etc...until I paused for a minute and realized that yes, that was the Hannah Montanna theme song playing in the background. The society president had put together a playlist for the social that consisted of Grease, Glee, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, 90s techno, and Shakira. It was a really entertaining playlist, so I went to tell him at the end of the night. I'm excited about being part of the Psych Society, because it will be nice to get to know some of the people in my program. Also, as the president said, "we've organized a ball with the engineering society, since we have a lot of girls and they have a lot of guys...should be fun?" I'm looking forward to it, and to all the events. After that we went to the Skydiving Society's weekly social at a pub a couple of blocks from my flat. I don't have any plans to sign up to jump out of an airplane, but a couple of my flatmates do so I went along. I met some fun people, and found out where this club I want to go to, the Hive, is, so it was a good night.
For the record, I'm going to class and am actually ahead with my homework. I just don't have much to say yet, since most of my classes are in the introductory phases, and they're lectures, so it's not like I'm having great discussions to recount. But I am really enjoying Gaelic (pronounced "gal-lic" with an "a" sound not a long a). It's mostly call-and-response right now, which is good because it's not phonetic at all. We're also learning songs! It's a lot of fun. So far I can say:
Good morning/afternoon/night! My name is Lauren, I am from the states. Who are you? Where are you from? How are you? I'm well/tired/cold/hot. I am not married. Are you married?
It's an AWESOME class.
I didn't have class until 3pm today, so I got up this morning and went to the library to do some reading for my tutorial next week (a smaller-group discussion on readings related to the lecture topics). After far more notes on the economic changes in Scotland during the mid-late eighteenth century than I thought I could handle, I met my flatmates for lunch at a bar in between home and campus. We had a great time and sat chatting for a couple of hours before I headed to class.
Now I'm home again, and tonight is my first week of classes with the Scottish Country Dance Society. It's a little different than it will be the rest of the year-this week will follow the format of last week's taster class. I'm excited to practice the dances I learned last week, and try the Highland Fling again!
So, it's the end of my first full week at Edinburgh University. So far, I love living here! But get back to me in a week after I've been in class. Actually, the past couple of days haven't been super because I'm actually sick with a head cold :( I'm trying to take it easy, sleep a lot, and drink lots of soup and tea! So far that's working. I feel much better than I did this morning, and if I go to bed at a reasonable time hopefully by Monday I'll be in top shape for classes.
Today I mostly stayed home and rested, but I did go to a 3-hour dance workshop hosted by the EU New Scotland Country Dance Society, right up the street at one of the student union buildings. I've actually already signed up for the group, but this was the first time I got to try some dancing! The workshop focused mainly on Ceilidh (kay-lee) dancing, which is a type of Scottish social dance done with figures and no (or very basic) steps. To a certain extent it seems to still be taught in schools and is obviously popular, given the number of ceilidhs that have been scheduled for this semester. I learned some neat dances I had attempted at the really chaotic ceilidh I went to earlier this week, including the Gay Gordons, the Arcadian Strip the Willow, and the Virginia Reel (this version, at least). Once the dances were explained, they were a lot easier!
To give you an idea of what I mean, here's a video showing the Gay Gordans:
Please be aware that we were NOT this stately or...you, know, old...
The workshop was meant to both instruct students interested in attending any of the (many!) ceilidhs happening on campus this term, but it was also a chance for the EUSCD society to demonstrate all the different styles they do and recruit new members. To that end, members of the society performed throughout the class and then we were given an opportunity to try each style, including Highland, Step, and Country Dancing. I even learned my first steps of the Highland Fling! (you can see videos of that in my earlier dance post)
I also met a bunch of new people, and got a surprisingly good workout! We were all drenched in sweat by the end.
Given that I've been feeling so ill, I was pretty proud of myself for making it through the whole workshop. I'm taking it easy for the rest of the night, though. One of my flatmates lent me her copy of St. Trinian's, a modern remake of the old black and white television show The Belles of St. Trinian's. I'll start that in a minute, and that plus the bowl of porridge (which is one of my new favorite foods!) will be a nice night.
On Saturday my friend from the exchange program, Nicolette, and I went to Edinburgh Castle to explore some of the local history.
The castle is actually made up of several buildings inside an outer wall of defense and gatehouse, rather than one massive building (like disney). I sort of knew this was how medieval castles worked, but what I thought was especially interesting about Edinburgh Castle is that it has been in use since the 12th century, and the buildings inside all date from different periods, much like the city itself. Nicolette and I decided to take the free half-hour tour around the grounds to get a better understanding on the history we were surrounded by. Our guide was Ewan, and he was very informative. I tend to be very critical of tour guides, since I work as one, and I thought it was funny to hear Ewan consciously adjusting his speech for Americans. Thanks, Ewan! I'm sure all 30 of us really benefited from that. He also had tartan pants on, which seems to be a big tourist thing. Nicolette and I both thought they were pretty awesome.
The oldest building left inside the walls is Saint Margaret's Chapel. According to Ewan, Queen Margaret was known as a just ruler known for religious reforms, and this chapel was built in her honor by her son, King David, in 1124. Ewan also informed us you can still be married there, which is a great relief to father's of the bride because it can only hold 20 guests!
As you might imagine, many of the buildings held museums or other attractions related to military history, as castles and wars tend to go together. This building, which I thought was one of the most beautiful, is the National War Memorial, completed in 1929 to honor the Scottish men who died in World War I. Since then, every Scottish person to give their life in conflict is written into the large volumes within the memorial. The building was lovely and peaceful, and very moving.
We spent about three hours at the castle, and saw all sorts of interesting things. One of my favorite exhibits was about the "Honors of Scotland," essentially the crown jewels. They are kept within the castle, but no photos are allowed in that room. They were really shiny, though! Another favorite area of the castle were the Royal Apartments, where Queen Mary (better known as Mary, Queen of Scots) gave birth to her son (later James VI of Scotland and I of England) in 1566. The birth took place in a small wood-paneled "birthing room," which is attached to one of the larger bedrooms. This is the decoration around the fireplace and ceiling in one of those large rooms.
Another part of the Stewart apartments was a large Great Hall. While the original metal-free ceiling of the Great Hall remains, the rest of it was redone during the mid 19th century. I happen to be a huge fan of Victorians attempting history-it's almost always off and super adorable. The Great Hall was no exception! The walls were decorated with large pikes and swords and pistols arranged into artful shapes, rendering all the weapons useless. I found the overlapping histories of the room really funny and entertaining, and the room was still really pretty. I also got a huge kick out of this sign, advertising living history events throughout the week. We didn't get to see any, but sometime this year I'll definitely have to go back!
In many of the buildings were war or military centred museums, including an undergound recreation of cells used for prisoners of war during the 18th century-including the American Revolution (which the Scots call "the American war of independence")! I was surprised by how open they were-they looked more like barracks on a ship than actual prison cells, complete with hammocks. However, they were still dark and smelly and underground, so I'm sure they still weren't great places to be. I was surprised that soldiers from the American Revolution were kept here-it just seems like a lot of extra effort to move them this far north! It just shows how important the castle was as a military facility during its time of use. Even today, a soldier still fires off the one o'clock gun every day at 1pm to keep time for the city. Pretty cool.
From the outside, the cells did look a lot more like what I expect from an old prison.
In general, I had a great time poking around the museum exhibits, especially the one about women working on farms on the home front in the National War Museum. I don't have a ton to say about a lot of it, so here are some pictures instead.
This is Emperor Napoleon's eagle from his glory days with the French Army. Apparently it was captured during his defeat at Waterloo by a Scottish regiment, and now resides at the castle. I really liked this case, which also had a couple of other Waterloo artifacts. I blame this on my middle school phase where I was obsessed with theories about Napoleon's death.
The view from the tower featuring the Red Coat Cafe where we had lunch. I know I've said it before, but I can't get over how beautiful the city is.
More of the castle. This part went down to the National War Museum. I have a bunch of pictures of things like WWII nurse uniforms and propaganda posters, but as those really don't share anything about the city, I'll save them for facebook.
