March 28, 29 & 30: Ghost tours, Scots like dogs & our new home
St Giles Cathedral
Apparently Scotland (Edinburgh in particular) is really haunted. Like, super haunted. They like to capitalise on this. A lot. There are ghost tours leaving from every which way on any given day (most on the half hour). We took Susan Henderson's advice and opted to visit Mary King's Close, which was a seemingly tiny street (though the second largest when it was built - second only to the Royal Mile) cut off at the second story to make room for the chamber of commerce. There's a completely blocked off street lying under the banks now, complete with houses and windows and foam sculptures of plague victims (they came in the early 2000's when they decided to turn it into a tourist attraction).
I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though. Before we visited the close, we strolled through the Newtown shops and went to St Giles Cathedral. We've been incredibly lucky with weather so far and could take advantage of the sun streaming through the stained glass windows. Technically we couldn't take photos, so these are stealth shots.
The walk on the way to the Newtown shops
I love the way the city is completely juxtaposed with rugged cliffs and castles. It's very easy to see why people believe there is magic + ghosts here.
There are also some really wonderful pubs in Edinburgh. Nicholas takes pictures of all the ones with rude names (there are many). I liked this one. "The Black Cat".
We've found ourselves grow very attached to a little cafe called Latitude Coffee. They serve blueberry scones which are amazing, and do a pretty good sandwich + soup combo. 10/10. We've been back almost every day for lunch, which is usually the only meal we eat out for.
Once the sun had gone down we went to Mary King's Close. There are all kinds of creepy rumours that circulate about the close. Some people say that when the street was covered over, they used the hundreds of dead plague victims as reinforcement in the structures. Others tell of ghosts crying out from beneath the floor. Our guide told of one ghost living in the street, a young girl named Annie, who tugged on the pants of a Japanese medium who visited the site a few years ago. Apparently, she had been left there with 'the sickness' to die and found no solace with no family and no toys to play with. The medium returned with a Barbie, which brightened her up immediately. Since then, people constantly bring her dolls and toys and boy band memorabilia (from Westlife to One Direction - I guess she has years of boy bands to catch up on). Our guide insisted there would be a toy avalanche one day, and he wanted to be around to see it.
There were no photos allowed to be taken in the close (a rule of the establishments upstairs, given Britain's history of underground treason). Neither Nick nor I saw a ghost, but it was unnerving being down there. I always get tingles when I touch really old things (walls, tools, cobblestones).
The next day was Sunday and Nicholas and I went to the National Gallery of Scotland. There was a lot of the same things as we saw in the British Gallery, except for a room of Scottish work downstairs. This work featured a lot of dogs, but illustrated very similar scenarios to any other 18th/19th century artwork.
This room was the nicest room in the gallery, if I do say so myself.
I don't even know what's going on here, but there you go
Dog
Dog
Dog
Dog
Dog
2 dogs
Dog
Dog
Dog
Sculpture of a dog
Dog
Dog
Dog
2 dogs
Dog
Dog
Dog
Dog
Another thing I really liked about the gallery (apart from the numerous dogs) was the colour of the walls. It doesn't quite look like it in the photographs below, but they were painted the same colour as my end of year installation at art school. I really like that colour. I call it 'institutional green'. Dulux call it 'misty moor' (my friends at uni consider this to be the hippy little sister of Mandy Moore).
My end of year installation
The walls in the gallery (the lightning/bad camera quality makes them look a different colour!)
This girl agrees with me. I rate her 10/10
The next day, Sunday, Fergus took us to a big camping shop just north of Edinburgh. I don't know if I told you much about Fergus, but he's a very friendly chap. He waited around for us for hours to pick out all of our camping gear, even though Nicholas spent just as many hours (no, more) on the computer the night before, picking out everything we needed, including brands and prices. Nicholas puts as much time and energy into buying a pair of shoes or a jacket or a tent as most people put into buying a new car.
To be fair, there was a lot that went into buying a tent. We recently found out that there are still snow storms in the Cairngorms (where we plan to camp in a week's time), so we needed a tent that could withstand cold weather, but not be too heavy. We ended up going with this tent which will hopefully save us from hypothermia, etc. It's also quite pretty and very water resistant. It'll probably rain a lot as we come down the west coast. Gotta be prepared!
We also went to a shop called Asda, where Nick bought Ben and Jerry's ice cream, because it's much cheaper here (even though the dollar is terrible). He's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to sweet food.
Our new home for the next few months!
BONUS PICTURE:
Nick honouring his previous incarnations and becoming one with his other self.
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