Of Kilts and Haunted Vaults

The trip to Edinburgh, Scotland and Dublin, Ireland creeped up on me like an itch.

Thursday afternoon we (Nicole, Alyssa, and Katie) made our way to the Marburg Hauptbahnhof where we took a train to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, then paid an annoying fee of 13 euro to take a 2 hour long bus ride to the Frankfurt Hahn airport.
RyanAir was not necessarily as terrifying as I have heard. In fact, take off was smooth and the entire flight was smooth until the landing where the wings of the plane resembled the wings of a frantic hummingbird.

Stepping out of the plane I was greeted by a huge gust of Scottish wind that nearly knocked me over. It's hard to describe the smell because it was one of the best smells my dear nose has ever had the pleasure of having. Even though it was airport air, it was SCOTTISH airport air. The warm air was a welcome change of pace after shivering to my skivvies in Marburg for the last few weeks.

We got off the bus towards the bottom of the South Bridge (though, at that time I had no idea what that meant). We were entirely lost. We started walking towards the castle seeing as how all that we knew of the Hostel's location was that it was near the castle. We ran into a group of Scotsmen and asked them for directions. They were drunk so it took a while to get any sort of information out of them. I figured that four girls asking about where the hostel was at the same time was one American too many, so I sort of stepped aside and looked around Edinburgh. Unfortunately there wasn't much to see because it was night time and street lamps are scarce. The wind picked up. No, that is too soft a term... the wind WENT CRAZY AND WANTED TO KILL US. It was very entertaining to say the least. I stood and leaned forward as much I could and got to almost a 45 degree angle thanks to the pressure of the wind. Alyssa was nearly dragged down a hill with her suitcase acting like a sail, while the rest of us were nearly blown down after her. We would have looked like four tumbleweeds screaming and giggling back down the South Bridge doomed to land in the Nor' Loch.

Suffice to say, the drunk Scotsmen were no help. We found a policeman and he told us that it would be simpler for him to just drive us to our hostel instead of attempting to tell us how to get there. I didn't understand what he meant until we started our drive and took who knows how many turns. We rolled up to the hostel with our police escort and hopped out thanking him with a few of the hostel residents for an audience. A part of me wishes he would have handcuffed us just for extra show. We got to our room (shared with fourteen other people) and made our beds. By this time it was 3 a.m. and were more than happy to sleep anywhere with a pillow. As I settled in and waited for sleep to descend, I noticed that a symphony was playing.

An orchestra of humans playing the age old Symphony of Snores. It started with the baritones (the men of the room, plus Nicole) moving in a rhythmic pace with the tenors following on their heels as to not let one nano-second of silence permeate the room. Somewhere in the 2nd movement of the symphony, the nice gentleman to my left began his great aria. An aria filled with so much gusto it could out due Pavarotti and Placido Domingo combined. The Aria of Phlegm hacked up and down with whizzing arpeggios and long drawn out notes that I never thought were humanly possible. I fell asleep somewhere between the third and fourth movements.

The next morning I was absolutely overflowing with excitement to see my Motherland. We found a breakfast and sat down to be greeted by a cheery waitress (something we were not used to living in Marburg). Alyssa got the American Breakfast, Nicole the Traditional Scottish Breakfast (complete with haggis and blood sausage), while Katie and I got pancakes. Both of us don't get very hungry when we are traveling. It was at this restaurant where I had my first taste of Scottish Breakfast tea. The tea and I were instantly in love. After breakfast, the girls left to go shower off the travel while I went up to the castle where I would meet them later. I circumnavigated Castle Hill and went up the switch-backed way. I got up to the top and found that I had completely lost my breath. Not only because of the horrendous climb, but by the view. I had never seen anything like this before. Everything was so expansive, yet so tightly packed together. It made me think of dominos closely placed edge-to-edge in tight rows. I honestly wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. Here I was, standing in a spot I had always wanted to go to since I was a wee little creature. And at that moment I was a full-fledged gremlin fulfilling a lifelong wish.

I walked down the Royal Mile and studied the architecture. It was the oddest yet most beautiful layout I had ever seen in my life. I got down to St. Giles' Cathedral and went inside. Again, I found that my breath had left me. The stained glass in that building was more beautiful than any I have seen thus far in my travels. I could help but take photographs, though NONE of them do justice. I walked back up to the Castle and met with the ladies. We all walked down the Royal Mile together where I found a new love in my life: Closes. For those who do not know, a "close" is a narrow street leading off from the Royal Mile. Each are named and each are dark and so... so... me.

We would be walking down the Royal Mile and the group would notice that they lost me. They would look around and see the tails of my long black coat as I bolted down a close. I must have gone down almost every close on the Royal Mile. My favorite close name was, Fleshmarket Close. It used to be a street for butcher shops, but was now vacant. I just love the name of it. It was very strange to be walking around and here/read everything in English. None of us were used to that and I felt particularly uncomfortable knowing where everything was. After these few months in Germany, I had somehow come to the conclusion that everything is difficult down to the smallest thing like buying stamps.

That day we walked around and talked about how excited we were to visit the Edinburgh Vaults that night. While in a shop at the castle there was a place where an assistant could look up family history. So I went up to the man and gave him my last name. It pulled up my coat of arms and history of my little Scottish clan. He turns to me and says, "You're from America, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Ah, well... welcome home little sister!" All in his cute lil Scottish accent.

The warm fuzzies from that exchange got a bit too unbearable and I had to bail. It is a nice memory though. :)

We all went back to the hostel to rest. While the ladies took a nap, I walked around and met some Spanish people who were staying at the same hostel as myself. I exercised my much depleted Spanish while they communicated in broken English. Charades. That was the name of the game.

The Edinburgh Vaults/The South Bridge Vaults are a series of chambers (connected by closes) formed in the 19 arches of the South Bridge. Completion of these were somewhere in the late 18th century. They were used for shops, but eventually became the epicenter of scum and villainy. It was said that the atmosphere in the vaults became so vile that the police stopped going there and it is also said that one could walk down a close and slit throats while walking by without anyone even noticing. Each of the vaults became inhabited by the poorest of the poor. Each vault held from 12 to 34 people. Due to the fact that the only plumbing in each vault was a corner, diseases began to spring up that nobody could (or can at present) really put a name to them. Not only were these vaults the center of disease, but murder, rape, bodysnatching, and other brutal crimes were a familiar event. The particular vaults we were to enter were used for Witch Trials (if you are familiar with how Scotland did Witch Trials, you can only imagine the energy displaced in those vaults). In short, Witch Trials consisted of brutal days of agonizing torture complete with ballbusters, thumb-screws, and who knows what else. First, those holding the trial would nail the suspect's right hand to his/her left knee and the left hand to the right knee. Then it was a few nights of horrible torture until a "confession."

At 10.00 at night, we made our way to the Royal Mile where we were to meet our tour guide to go on, "The Haunted Tour of Edinburgh's Vaults." Katie and I were absolutely ecstatic about this evening while Nicole and Alyssa were about to pee their pants. Nevertheless, we were all very excited... in our own ways. The tour began with a walk around the South Bridge as the guide explained to our group (around 15-20 people) the history of the bridge and the conditions in which these people lived. Then it was time for the vaults. We entered a big black door that lead us to a dimly lit room full of metal objects behind class cases. Each of these objects were legitimate torture devices used in the witch trials. I was absolutely elated. You should know, one of my morbid obsessions is the study of torture devices from the Medieval times/Spanish Inquisition. You know, the light and cheery stuff!

Next we were lead down a long and winding stone staircase. Down and down and down until we reached the bottom where the air was thick and old. I absolutely loved the smell. It was so thick it was like I was breathing history itself. The close was long, narrow, and dark with only a few torches lit here and there. As we stood in this dark passage, the tour guide introduced us to the story of one of the Vault's ghosts: The Watcher.

The Watcher is a man with long hair wearing a top hat and a long dark cloak. This particular ghost has no face and is quick to move. He moves from vault to vault blissfully unaware of anyone else present. Our tour guide told us a story of how he was leading a group down and saw someone go into a vault. He followed after the person to tell them that they shouldn't wander off by themselves. When he reached the vault, nobody was there. It was completely empty.

The next ghost is one they call, Maggie. She was once a prostitute in these slums and reported acts of violent physical abuse against her. The police never replied to her requests and her butchered corpse was found a few days later sprawled on the steps we stood on at that moment. She is more of a trickster and is very fond of playing jokes on men. There is a story where a man in the back of the tour felt a cold hand go down his pants. He thought how lucky he was that his wife decided to warm her hand in an ideal spot, but as he turned to look at his wife... she was not there. In fact, there was nobody around him. Awkward.

We then proceeded into a vault that had a large collection of stone slabs all arranged in a circle. This particular place is heralded by the strange phenomenon known as "cold spots." Patches of ice were found in the vault though the temperature was mildly warm. There is a story about a woman named Anne Cooper who was on the same tour. She stood at the back and listened to the story being told. All of a sudden she started sobbing uncontrollably. She was kneeling in the vault clutching her head. She was taken to an ambulance and she told them that she suddenly became freezing cold and something had grabbed the back of her head and forced her body down to her knees. This is not the first time this has happened, other reported cases include people feeling icy fingers in their hair. Once a ten-year-old boy was carried unconscious from the vaults after complaining that something cold was holding on to his head.

When the vault was first open, George Cameron decided to locate his pagan temple there. After all sorts of unexplainable happenings, it creeped even the Wickens out. George Cameron decided to spend a night in his vault all alone to confront the entities. Just after midnight, George heard something crawling through the blackness. Too afraid to turn on his flashlight, he began to chant protective incantations and the intruder receded. Next, the sound of a sobbing woman slunked about George from within the vault. Then, more biting, scratching, and sobbing noises began to permeate the darkness. The next morning, George placed the stone slabs in the vault and cast a spell to constrict all demons to that spot. Mind you, we were being told this story as we stood in the room. I was totally enthralled.

The last and final vault is said to be one of the most haunted places out of THE most haunted places in the world. Before we entered, the tour guide separated us by gender and lead the women to the right side of the vault and the men to the left side of the vault. The reason being that all of the attacks in the past seemed to happen to women while they were on the left side of the vault. People have walked from those vaults with scratches all over their bodies. Apparently it is a regular visiting place for the paramedics of Edinburgh. The tour guide turned off his flashlight in the vault and began to tell us the story:

The story of this vault is gruesome and sad. Back in the 18th century there was a large fire that set all of Edinburgh in flames. The people (some 35 bodies or so) thought that they would be safe inside the vault because it was made of stone. They locked themselves in and were completely trapped. The fire burned in the houses above them and the stone gradually began to heat up and the air thickened. The vault turned into a giant oven slowly baking the 35 people trapped inside for days. When the fire was over and workers broke into the vault to clean up the damage, they found a mass of mangled corpses. Mothers still clutching to their children, fingernail marks grooved deep in the stone walls. The workers took hold of an arm, but the flesh slid off from the bone like overcooked meat. Nicole clung to my arm as we listened to this story.

As the tour guide was wrapping up his dark tale someone let out an awful scream. This was followed by the screams of other women. Next thing I knew, half of my body was dragged to the ground as Nicole went straight to fetal position with Alyssa on her other side. Katie and I were simply annoyed that we couldn't (and wouldn't) hear the rest of the story. For the tour was over. The Tour Guide had taken advantage of the situation and grazed the arm of a girl in the tour with his walking stick. Well played, sir. We were led up and out and were given a drink voucher for our troubles. YAY! So we sat at the Banshee Bar and discussed what had just happened and previous hauntings we've all encountered in our life time. The rest of the night was full of drinking and goodwill towards your fellow Scotsman, but I could not get the vaults out of my brain. Something nasty had awoken inside me. I had found... a new obsession.

The next day we each got a traditional Scottish breakfast (full of meat and full of beans). We split off and went on our own little adventures. Katie and Alyssa ran off to look at shops and ended up finding a weird art gallery and a christmas store. Nicole and I found ourselves going into Mary King's Close. Nicole, at first, was not very excited about venturing back down into the dark regions of Edinburgh to explore more vaults and more death. But, I assured her that the tour was indeed not haunted. Or, at least, not meant to scare you. I don't think she believed me until she saw that a little boy was going on the tour as well. In any case, we had some time before the tour so we got FISH N CHIPSSSSSS. I say that with much gusto because it's one of my favorite meals on this planet. We also got a Gaelic Coffee (Scotch, coffee, and whipped cream). My tastebuds about exploded with glee.

The tour of Mary King's Close was guided by a buxom and robust Scottish woman dressed in an 18th century maid costume. She led us down the close and I was so happy to smell that familiar smell and breathe in that familiar old air. She took us into various rooms and told us about what had happened there and the living conditions of the people. Then she took us to a room that had a few mannequins set up to look like a plague doctor was visiting a plague-infected home. One more thing, I have always been OBSESSED with the plague doctor's uniform. I don't know why, but I think it's entrancing. The guide told a tale of how the plague came about. When she reached the part about rats she squeezed a little rat toy that made a squeaking noise that gave Nicole a start and she grabbed the sleeve of the guy in front of us. After our AWESOME tour of Mary King's Close, we had to head back to the Hostel to meet up with Katie and Alyssa so that we could get to the airport and shove off to Dublin.

As I walked up the outside steps to enter the airplane, I took a long and deep inhale of good Scottish air. I didn't/don't know when I will return there and I want to keep that memory fresh. Now I have a little saying in my head (thanks to Scotland): whenever I think of all my regrets and negative whatevers... I "Gardy Loo" it out my window and flush it down to the Nor' Loch.



Next Blog: Of Guinness and Irishmen. (Ireland)

Language Barrier Charades

In our program we have an option of having a "tandem partner."

A tandem partner is a native German speaker looking to improve his/her English, so they get paired up with a native English speaker hoping to improve his/her German. Basically you meet for 2 hours and speak 1 hour in English and 1 hour in German. Due to some oddities I landed myself with 2 tandem partners.

The Tale of Tandem 1:

The most awkward phase of meeting up with the tandem partner is arriving at the set location and staring down every person walking by as if to communicate telpathically:
"Are you the German I'm looking for?"
It's funny how these things just have a way of working themselves out, but I still hold fast to my belief that all Germans are telepathic. I don't know how to describe the evidence I have to support this assertion, but I believe myself to be correct.

Anyway, I meet up with Tandem 1 and we find a place to sit in the Mensa. Not an ideal location for someone not fluent in German because it is quite loud. We start in English and do the usual introductions such as, "I come from blah, this is what it's like, blah blah blah."
We got on the topic of the scale of the United States. Tandem 1 couldn't quite understand just how large Utah is. I told her, "Utah is almost as large as Germany." To which she replied with a confusing look. So I drew it for her and her eyes widened. "You tell me ffat (that) one ov your states is almost as large as my COUNTREEE?!"
Topics ranged from the size of streets in the Western United States, to the mountains, to contemporary immigration to the USA. Needless to say, both of us continued to land ourselves in conversations that were way above our vocabulary levels. Apparently she is in a class about Mexican immigration to the USA and how that parallels the Turkish immigration to Germany.

I also clarified for her the proper use of "a.m." and "p.m." when trying to communicate a specific time. When we were emailing to meet up she would write (in English), "we meet before Mensa from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.?" I found that ridiculous and assumed she meant p.m. My assumption was verified when she then asked if, "2 a.m. on Monday" would be better.


The Tale of Tandem 2:

More awkward attempts at German telepathy. I think I am getting the hang of this because I found this partner much quicker than the last. This time we sat by the Lahn where it was pretty quiet. Tandem 2's English was definitely not that great. It boiled down to us speaking in our own languages to each other with the occasional phrase in the other language. When we couldn't find an easy way of explaining things (which was often) we ended up playing charades. It must have been a sight.

We spoke mostly of holidays and the differences between the German school system and the American school system (for instance, when one semester starts and ends). The conversation didn't flow quite as easily as with Tandem 1. The reason I think is because Tandem 1 is an English major and wants to teach it so she has a lot of enthusiasm. Tandem 2 is studying Geography and is improving her English for traveling.


Thus ends this little tale.

I don't know if it shows, but right now I am having a difficult time piecing sentences together. I spent the last 2 hours reading Lord of the Rings in German and I found it a bit difficult to suddenly switch to writing full sentences in English. I'll be sure to take a breather before I do that again.

Tschuess from Marburg!