This last weekend some of the Parliament interns took the train to Edinburgh to visit the Scottish Parliament. There was 9 of us and then our 2 internship coordinators, James and John. The train ride was roughly 4.5 hours with beautiful views out the windows the whole way up and we got to Edinburgh in the afternoon.
One of the best parts of the weekend was that we stayed in a hotel and a nice hotel at that. The beds were big and comfy and the showers had hot water. It was a wonderful vacation from our uncomfortable beds and bathrooms. And the televisions got 6 channels! (the ones at home only get 5) The hotel was just a block from the train station and a block from the Royal Mile, the main street in Edinburgh. From our room we could see the new Edinburgh section with Calton Hill.
A little bit about the city -
Edinburgh is a pretty small city. The Castle is on a hill and the Royal Mile extends down from it. Off of the Royal Mile, there are hundreds of little Closes, which are basically narrow alleys. The original Edinburgh was only about a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. There were walls surrounding it for protection and the city was extremely overcrowded. They had apartment buildings over 14 stories high by the 18th century. When Benjamin Franklin visited the city, he said how there were two kinds of streets in the city: the normal streets, then the streets that went up.
They built a new section for the city that was supposed to rival London and attract more socialites and wealth. However, what New Edinburgh did was relocate Edinburgh's existing wealthy from the center of the city outward. After this move, Edinburgh became extremely dirty and dangerous.
Edinburgh is surrounded by hills and the North Sea. Calton Hill is in the New Edinburgh section and is a hill of monuments. To me, it looks like a Scottish Acropolis. It had what looks like ancient ruins but in reality, they are just monuments built in recent centuries. There is even a Parthenon look-a-like monument built in the 19th century that was never finished.
The first thing we did after getting to the city was walk down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament. The building is pretty modern and, in my opinion, quite ugly. It doesn't fit into the landscape at all. I believe it was built around 2000. The original Parliament building is in the center of the Royal Mile but wasn't used after Scotland joined England to form Great Britain at the beginning of the 1700s. Scotland didn't have its own Parliament until about 10 years ago when Great Britain started devolution. So now they have a form of federalism in Great Britain with the Scottish Parliament acting like our state governments.
We got a tour of the building and then met with a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). I cannot remember his name but he was a very interesting man who had a lot to say. If anyone could perfect the art of digression, it was him. He went from answering a question about the SNP's relationship with the Irish Nationalists to European football in a matter of about 2 minutes. That night we went on a pub crawl in the New Edinburgh section and had a great time.
What I really wanted to do was climb one of the hills. I got up early Saturday morning (around 4:30am) to try to hike up the hill behind the Parliament building and see the sun rise. I made it to the trail before I chickened out. As I was standing there in the dark, looking at the black wall in front of me, I started thinking about Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights and getting lost in a moor (whatever that is). So I walked back towards the lighted city and walked along the Royal Mile for about an hour before I got scared again. Edinburgh is considered one of the most haunted cities in Europe. After walking by myself in deserted ancient city in the dark for about an hour, my imagination started to runaway with me. I pretty much ran back to the hotel after that.
That day we went to tour Edinburgh Castle. It was beautiful! We got to see the Scottish crown jewels and see them fire off a cannon. My favorite part of the castle was the prison. They held prisoners of war there beginning in the early 1700s. Even some Americans from the Revolutionary War were held there.
After the castle, four of us decided to go on a vault tour. There are vaults under the city that have been used since the 17th century. In the 1800s, they were deemed unusable and filled with rubble until the 1980s when excavations began. We took a tour of some that are 3 stories below ground. It was beyond creepy. We did go on the history tour and not the ghost tour but that didn't make a difference to me. In each room, there was just a candle and I could barely see the guide.
That night, we went on a real ghost tour with another company. They took you around the city and then into a cemetery. I was handling it well until the end when they take you into a prison yard and then into a mausoleum where a poltergeist supposedly lives. There is a great story about the place that I will post later. The guide freaked me out so much that I chickened out. I ended up sitting in the cemetery for 30 minutes waiting for the group to finish. I don't know which was a better choice. But I was with a Scottish girl who backed out as well so I at least had company. We discovered the company's secret - a guy jumps out at the group in the mausoleum. He had to wait where we were sitting so we talked with him for a little while.
Afterwards, we met up with the other people in our group at a hostel bar and had a great time singing and dancing. The next morning, a few of us walked up Calton Hill and saw the beautiful views. We then left that afternoon and made it back to London around 8pm.
I had a great time in Scotland. I love it there. I hope that someday I could take a trip back there and tour the whole country. It was so beautiful!
