The End

This is the last blog post. I'm back in Maryland after a grueling 20 hours of traveling after 1 hour of sleep. I didn't have any problems though, and everything went smoothly. It kind of feels like Edinburgh never happened now...

There's really nothing else to say. The last five months have been incredible. I had extremely high expectations for this semester, and I can honestly say that it was even better than I had hoped. Thanks to you all for reading this blog, I hope you enjoyed it!

The end.

The Last Day

Today was my last day in Edinburgh. I cannot believe this is the end.

I spent the first part of today packing, then I hung out with people for the rest of the day. We had a nice picnic in the Meadows until it started hailing, then we went back to a flat to hang out for awhile. Lauren and I made some delicious apple raisin scones then. A while later we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant, then we went to a pub for our last get together. Now the goodbyes are said, the bags are mostly packed, and my taxi is booked for 4 am.

I have a 5 hour layover at Heathrow, then my flight should get in to Dulles around 4 pm. I have to finish some packing now then go to bed because I have to wake up in 2 hours. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I can't believe I'm leaving...

The Forth and Inchcolm Island

If I were to make a horror movie based on my experiences today, I would name it "The Birds: The Sequel", "Nesting Season", or "Killer Gulls". But more on that later.

Today I took a boat trip on the Firth of Forth, the big body of water that Edinburgh is on. It left from South Queensferry, which is outside of Edinburgh and you can't get there with public transportation, so the ferry company has a tour bus that takes people from Edinburgh to the pier. It was nice seeing new towns and hearing new information about those areas. It was a really pretty day, and Queensferry is a nice little town.

The boat was called the Forth Belle. There was a nice commentary and that combined with the pleasant weather and great scenery made for a very nice boat ride. The Forth has been really important in history, particularly in World War II. There are lots of bunkers on all the islands, and apparently there are literally hundreds of sunken ships, submarines, and planes in the water. It would be really cool to go diving there someday.

Here are some scenes from that ride:

South Queensferry:

The Forth bridges:

Bunkers on Inch Garvie:

Seals on a buoy:

Lighthouse:

After about 40 minutes, we got to Inchcolm Island. It's a really picturesque island, with abbey ruins on it. I explored the abbey and it's beautiful! You can go everywhere, and it was just really cool.

Inchcolm Abbey:

Inside the abbey:

There are more pictures on facebook.

After I had seen all of the abbey, I set off to explore the island. The abbey was in the middle of the island, so i decided to go to the west end first. The first thing I saw was this sign:

Well I only saw a few seagulls and who knew if it was even nesting season? So I kept going.

A lovely, peaceful day:

Pretty soon I saw this:

Ok, so seagulls aren't that aggressive right? What could happen? So I kept walking. Below are some scenes that will be in my horror film:

After I filmed those videos they started getting pretty aggressive, like swooping close to my head, so I decided to get out of there fast.

So much for that. On to the other side of the island. Again, at first I didn't see many seagulls:

But then I turned a corner and there they were!

They were more aggressive from the start, so I ducked into a bunker for protection:

Safety:

I actually stayed in there for a few minutes, somewhat afraid to leave... But I had to eventually, because they started swooping in front of the window and kind of dive bombing the shelter. Time to move on.

I hurried back along the path and found a tunnel so I ran in there for shelter from the swooping birds.

It was a really long tunnel, and pretty creepy, but it felt like a playground compared to the demonic beasts waiting outside. I stayed in there planning my next maneuver, then dashed through the tunnel to the other side.

I came out by another bunker, so I jumped in there to survey my surroundings. There were a ton of gulls in that area and I was getting kind of freaked out so I decided to cut my losses and run. I got out of the bunker, went back through the tunnel, and headed back towards the abbey.

Coming out of the tunnel:

More bunkers and seagulls:

Back into the tunnel:

There was still an hour left until the boat came back to pick us up (we had already been there an hour), so I sat on a bench by the abbey in a relatively gull-free zone. I saw lots of things while I waited, including:

Ducks:

Sailboats:

Evil gulls:

My shoe:

And finally, my boat!

Eventually the boat did come, and I was rescued. As I left the island, I saw this:

So that was an epic adventure. The boat ride back was great. We saw some puffins and seals.

Puffin:

Seals:

Seals:

After we got back to the pier I took the tour bus back to Edinburgh. I think I'm going to have nightmares about seagulls tonight.

Underground Edinburgh

Today I took a tour of the Edinburgh vaults. Edinburgh is a very hilly city, and it's built in levels. One of the main streets, South Bridge, is in fact a bridge, even though you can't tell when you're on it. It has 19 supporting arches, and only 1 is visible (on Cowgate!), so it's hard to tell that it's a bridge. Anyway, these 19 supporting arches form vaults under the whole length of South Bridge. Here's a picture I took from a sign that kind of diagrams what it looks like:

South Bridge Vaults:

The bridge was built in the 1700s, and until the 1830s, they were in constant use. At first, they were used as workshops. The conditions were really, really awful and it was just a bad place to be. Eventually the workers moved to other locations. When the workshops were closed, other people moved in. New businesses were started, like gambling halls and brothels. The vaults were also used as places to conduct illegal trading and to store things, like bodies from body snatchers (who made a very lucrative living by selling bodies to the University of Edinburgh Medical School). Very poor people also lived down there.

The vaults were filled in in the 1830s, and remained relatively untouched until the 1980s, when a pub owner, whose pub stood over the vaults, started excavating them secretly. There's a cool story about how one of his barmen, a Scottish rugby player, helped a Romanian rugby player escape from the Romanian secret police in 1989. The Romanian was trying to escape the Romanian uprising and seek asylum in Britain, so he hid in the vaults until it was safe for him to come out, and he was granted asylum in Britain. Now he's a PE teacher in England.

Mercat Tours, the company I went with today, took over the excavations after that. They've found all kinds of artifacts and stuff down there and they now know a lot about what kinds of businesses and people were down there. It was all very fascinating.

Of course the vaults are considered to be the most haunted place in Britain. There are tons of stories about ghosts and stuff that live down there, and you can reserve a spot to spend the night in the vaults and investigate paranormal activity... Mercat does ghost tours too obviously but I did a historic one.

A lot of the pubs and clubs in Edinburgh, especially the ones by me on Cowgate, are built in these vaults so I've been in them many times, but it was really cool to see what they looked like without being modified. Mercat has left them pretty much the same as when they excavated them, just adding in a few lights.

Here are a couple pictures from the vaults. It was really dark down there, but my camera flash made it look lighter. The second picture is what it looked like without flash.

What the vaults look like without a camera flash:

Wine storage cubbies:

The Scottish Borders

Another fantastic day. I took a tour south to the Scottish Borders. We had perfect weather again (a little cloudy in the morning but it cleared up by late morning and was in the high 70s/low 80s). There were about 10 people on the tour, and I loved the guide! She was young, probably mid to late twenties, and really fun and knowledgeable. We actually talked a lot which is always fun.

We started off a little slow because traffic was diverted because of the marathon, but then we got on our way. The first stop was at Scott's View, named after Sir Walter Scott because he used to go up there for inspiration. It's a beautiful view of some typical border scenery.

Scott's View:

The next stop was to see the first ever Wallace monument. There was a bit of a walk out to it, and it was really pretty. The statue itself is strange. The guy who commissioned it was kind of crazy and he made William Wallace look more like a Roman soldier than a Scotsman. His kilt is on backward, for one thing, and he's wearing a weird helmet. It's huge though, so it's quite impressive, and it was the first one.

Walking to the Wallace Monument:

The first Wallace Monument:

Next we stopped at Melrose Abbey. I loved it! It's so, so beautiful (and the nice weather helped). It's huge, and it was really fun to walk around it. It was hard picking which pictures to put on here (hence the reason there are so many...) because it really is a beautiful place. So look at the ones on facebook when you get a chance!

Melrose Abbey:

Where Robert the Bruce's heart is buried:

After I explored the abbey (free audio guides are always nice) I got lunch at a really nice little cafe in Melrose.

The next stop was at Peebles. Usually the tours don't stop there (just drive through it), but it was such a nice day and it's the guide's hometown, so we stopped for a few minutes by the river. It was really pretty! It was nice to be able to enjoy the nice weather as much as possible. The river that Peebles is on is called the River Tweed. Apparently it's one of the best salmon fishing rivers in the world.

Peebles:

The River Tweed:

Our last stop was at Rosslyn Chapel (of Da Vinci Code fame). Now that's a strange building. Even if someone had never heard about the Knights Templar or the rumors about the Holy Grail and stuff it would still be easy to tell that there's something going on in that building. It's just so mysterious, if that makes sense. The architecture is so crazy, and there are little carvings and inscriptions and stuff everywhere. Unfortunately it's just at the end of a 13 year conservation period, so it's under construction. There's been a metal canopy over the whole building for 13 years, and they started taking it down yesterday. So you really can't see the outside, then they have wooden scaffolding covering the roof inside, so you can't see that either. Other than the ceiling, the inside is normal, but you can't take pictures inside. I bought postcards of what the outside, inside, and ceiling look like, so that's what the pictures below are from.

All you can currently see of the outside of Rosslyn Chapel:

What the chapel looks like without scaffolding:

Inside Rosslyn Chapel:

The ceiling (currently covered by scaffolding):

I walked around the chapel, then did a half hour guided tour. The guide said that before the Da Vinci Code came out, the chapel had about 9000 visitors a year (admission price: 50p). After the book was released, they had 175,000 people the next year (admission price: 7.50)! That is insane. There are all kinds of myths about the chapel, and of course the main one is what is buried under the floor. Theories range from the Holy Grail, to the Ark of the Covenant, to the real Stone of Destiny...

After the guided tour I went for a hike. Rosslyn Castle is near the chapel, so I walked down there, then I hiked around the area (Roslin Grove). There are a ton of paths, and it's really pretty. I didn't have enough time to thoroughly explore all the paths so I definitely want to go back someday (after they finish conservation work on the chapel...).

Walking to the castle:

Approaching Rosslyn Castle ruins:

Going to the hiking trails:

Hiking in Roslin Glen:

We went back to Edinburgh after that. So yeah it was a great day! I'm loving this weather. I'm going to church in about half an hour (the LAST ONE [!!!]), then I don't know what after that.