Four years ago today...
...I was sitting in a vault under the center of Edinburgh, listening to a tour guide tell us all about how Burke and Hare killed their victims. There were about twenty other tourists sitting around the dank and gloomy cellar. Our guide was a pretty woman in her forties, with the most...arresting...public-speaking style. She used both hands to give a lively imitation of Burke smothering a hapless visitor. Then she explained how one of their victims was a certain Mary Paterson, who had long reddish-blonde hair, up in papers at the time she was killed. Burke cut it all off at the request of one of the medical students.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I clutched my own hair and shuddered. The tour guide did have to admit that Burke and Hare wouldn't have hidden any bodies in that particular cellar, because it was privately owned. "But they did operate right near here," she said, pointing enthusiastically upwards at the building proper, two stories above.
Edinburgh was a wonder for me that Halloween. As soon as I got back above ground-level, I felt a lot better and decided that I could live with a couple of ghastly true-crime stories.
The vaults of Underground Edinburgh aren't that old. I expected them to be medieval catacombs, but they were built only about two hundred years ago. It seems the main street, the Royal Mile, was built on a long bridge that extended over several small creeks. More of a causeway, really. Then houses were built along both sides of the bridge. Then more buildings were erected behind them, filling in on each side, and the whole thing became a sort of artificial hill on the slope of a real hill, with a series of subterranean arches underneath the buildings and the street. All the arches that were high enough to stay dry were rented as wine cellars and the like. In fact, some were still in use, and we tourists had to enter through the basement of a Goth dance club which was taking full advantage of the atmosphere. The vaults that we explored had a few antique wine kegs and a big plaster skeleton chained to a wall. And despite the skeleton being obviously plastic, it was creepy being down there. Even a place that can't possibly be haunted by mad monks or cursed by the Druids or whatever can still give me the heebie-jeebies. You know how sometimes it's creepy to just go down in your own cellar alone? Or your utility room, or your attic, or whatever room gives you the irrational creeps. This was like that.
On Halloween, I went to a storytelling festival. The speakers were all of the brilliant. I made friends with some of the organizers and we even went out for a beer on their parts and a lemonade on mine afterwards. Lemonade, as Bill Bryson puts it, "to the British means a sweet fizzy drink that never saw a lemon in its life", but it was fine anyway. Later that night, I felt restless and went out exploring again. There was nothing going on that I could really get into--a few crowded pubs, but that was about it. But then I wandered down the Royal Mile and heard drums coming towards me. A parade came raging out of a side street and frolicked up the deserted street towards me. There were conga drummers. There were dancers, some covered in red and white paint. There were jugglers and people with bolos. There were enthusiastic werewolves and sexy vampires. There was a guy dressed up as a giant red penis, because there's always one. Other than him, though, they were pretty cool, and I got down off the front steps where I'd jumped at their approach and marched right along with them, clapping and chanting. For the life of me, you know, I can't even remember what we were chanting. It meant a lot to me right then, though. They were the closest I think I'll ever come to Bacchantes.
Then I went back to the hostel and went to bed. The Palmerston Lodge Hostel, cheapest night's sleep in Edinburgh. It's in the New Town area, which is to Edinburgh as Back Bay is to Boston: laid out on a grid, full of classical buildings and mansard roofs. It used to be a Stately Home, but somehow it wound up in the hands of Hosteling International, who put down wall-to-wall industrial carpeting and shoved five beds in each room. Previous tourists had stuck their gum to the wall and carved their names in the plaster. Still, it was a pretty good-looking place even in its decay. The entrance was imposing: you entered giant double doors to a big dark entryway with a central stairwell that went up and up and up into the gloom. The receptionist sat at the foot of the stairs, her face lit only by the lamp on her desk, giving me a thousand-yard stare. All in all, I got a kick out of it. Since there was no one else in my dormitory, I lay awake till all hours, happily jet-lagged and reading or singing to myself and pretending I was the young hope of the family and that the bell would ring shortly to warn me to dress for dinner.
Man, that was a great trip. It only lasted twelve days--in retrospect, I can hardly believe all the experience I packed in, and it wasn't even two weeks. I haven't gone anywhere nearly as cool since then. My heart yearns for it--I want to travel. And I'm aware what a cliche that is--I know that everybody in the whole world wants to travel and see the world. I feel dumb for admitting it, it's such a cliche. But I want it like crazy. In London city was Beachaum born, He longed strange countries for to see... And I fear I'll never get the chance again, that I won't have the money or time.
Since my birthday is in October, this feels more like my New Year than January 1st does. I measure my time from fall to fall and make my resolutions around now. What do I want to do in the coming year?
Work more hours for good pay
Keep up with my studies
Save my money
Learn to lifeguard
Decide what to do with my entire working life
Those will do for now. And when I've saved enough money, I'll go travel with it again. Name an English-speaking country, I want to visit it. How to decide? Flip a coin. No, I know what I want to start with: I'll buy my own car and take a drive across the US, just for starters. This is as young and free as I'll ever get, and I want to strike while the iron is hot.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I clutched my own hair and shuddered. The tour guide did have to admit that Burke and Hare wouldn't have hidden any bodies in that particular cellar, because it was privately owned. "But they did operate right near here," she said, pointing enthusiastically upwards at the building proper, two stories above.
Edinburgh was a wonder for me that Halloween. As soon as I got back above ground-level, I felt a lot better and decided that I could live with a couple of ghastly true-crime stories.
The vaults of Underground Edinburgh aren't that old. I expected them to be medieval catacombs, but they were built only about two hundred years ago. It seems the main street, the Royal Mile, was built on a long bridge that extended over several small creeks. More of a causeway, really. Then houses were built along both sides of the bridge. Then more buildings were erected behind them, filling in on each side, and the whole thing became a sort of artificial hill on the slope of a real hill, with a series of subterranean arches underneath the buildings and the street. All the arches that were high enough to stay dry were rented as wine cellars and the like. In fact, some were still in use, and we tourists had to enter through the basement of a Goth dance club which was taking full advantage of the atmosphere. The vaults that we explored had a few antique wine kegs and a big plaster skeleton chained to a wall. And despite the skeleton being obviously plastic, it was creepy being down there. Even a place that can't possibly be haunted by mad monks or cursed by the Druids or whatever can still give me the heebie-jeebies. You know how sometimes it's creepy to just go down in your own cellar alone? Or your utility room, or your attic, or whatever room gives you the irrational creeps. This was like that.
On Halloween, I went to a storytelling festival. The speakers were all of the brilliant. I made friends with some of the organizers and we even went out for a beer on their parts and a lemonade on mine afterwards. Lemonade, as Bill Bryson puts it, "to the British means a sweet fizzy drink that never saw a lemon in its life", but it was fine anyway. Later that night, I felt restless and went out exploring again. There was nothing going on that I could really get into--a few crowded pubs, but that was about it. But then I wandered down the Royal Mile and heard drums coming towards me. A parade came raging out of a side street and frolicked up the deserted street towards me. There were conga drummers. There were dancers, some covered in red and white paint. There were jugglers and people with bolos. There were enthusiastic werewolves and sexy vampires. There was a guy dressed up as a giant red penis, because there's always one. Other than him, though, they were pretty cool, and I got down off the front steps where I'd jumped at their approach and marched right along with them, clapping and chanting. For the life of me, you know, I can't even remember what we were chanting. It meant a lot to me right then, though. They were the closest I think I'll ever come to Bacchantes.
Then I went back to the hostel and went to bed. The Palmerston Lodge Hostel, cheapest night's sleep in Edinburgh. It's in the New Town area, which is to Edinburgh as Back Bay is to Boston: laid out on a grid, full of classical buildings and mansard roofs. It used to be a Stately Home, but somehow it wound up in the hands of Hosteling International, who put down wall-to-wall industrial carpeting and shoved five beds in each room. Previous tourists had stuck their gum to the wall and carved their names in the plaster. Still, it was a pretty good-looking place even in its decay. The entrance was imposing: you entered giant double doors to a big dark entryway with a central stairwell that went up and up and up into the gloom. The receptionist sat at the foot of the stairs, her face lit only by the lamp on her desk, giving me a thousand-yard stare. All in all, I got a kick out of it. Since there was no one else in my dormitory, I lay awake till all hours, happily jet-lagged and reading or singing to myself and pretending I was the young hope of the family and that the bell would ring shortly to warn me to dress for dinner.
Man, that was a great trip. It only lasted twelve days--in retrospect, I can hardly believe all the experience I packed in, and it wasn't even two weeks. I haven't gone anywhere nearly as cool since then. My heart yearns for it--I want to travel. And I'm aware what a cliche that is--I know that everybody in the whole world wants to travel and see the world. I feel dumb for admitting it, it's such a cliche. But I want it like crazy. In London city was Beachaum born, He longed strange countries for to see... And I fear I'll never get the chance again, that I won't have the money or time.
Since my birthday is in October, this feels more like my New Year than January 1st does. I measure my time from fall to fall and make my resolutions around now. What do I want to do in the coming year?
Work more hours for good pay
Keep up with my studies
Save my money
Learn to lifeguard
Decide what to do with my entire working life
Those will do for now. And when I've saved enough money, I'll go travel with it again. Name an English-speaking country, I want to visit it. How to decide? Flip a coin. No, I know what I want to start with: I'll buy my own car and take a drive across the US, just for starters. This is as young and free as I'll ever get, and I want to strike while the iron is hot.