Edinburgh

I visited the Edinburgh Castle, the town’s most popular tourist site.  I had been forewarned by two French men that the castle was mediocre.  My hostel sat in the castle’s shadow; I saw this beaming edifice every day from all over the city.  There was no way I was leaving Edinburgh without going inside.  

I should’ve listened to the French men, but I couldn’t justify not visiting the castle.  The castle was divided into several exhibits.  One in particular focused on Scotland’s role in major wars throughout history.   Panels that detailed the Scots’ war efforts were informative but somewhat dull.  Facts and lists of statistics can only hold a visitor’s interest for so long.  Museums need captivating writers, or else tourists will merely look at the pictures and learn very little, except maybe that the queen wore pretty dresses.  

Despite being mildly disappointed, I explored the entire castle to eke out every last pence-worth of this £16 experience.  I consider my efforts a mild success, although I rarely envisioned myself in a medieval castle except when I visited the former prisoner’s barracks.  The musty room was furnished with ragged hammocks.  Clothes lines dangled under the weight of damp uniforms.  A soundtrack on repeat played out a dialogue between an English-speaking prisoner and a Frenchman who groaned from some malady.  I was briefly transported to the glory days when the castle was used for deterring unwanted visitors rather than inviting them in for a look around.  For the rest of my trip I felt I was in a tourist zoo, replete with field-trip-going students and the occasional screaming toddler.  

The highlights of the castle were the Crown Jewels of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny.  A gold crown, scepter, and sword were the centerpiece of many a royal coronation, and now they are on display at the Edinburgh Castle.  They are guarded by two thin, unarmed employees who entertained themselves by chatting about a French guy they could not comprehend.  Even if you managed to get past the first level of security, this was, after all, a heavily fortified castle.

Despite being an unremarkably-looking rock, the Stone of Destiny has a tumultuous past.  With a history spanning over 700 years, its origins are foggy and even mystical, but it was certainly used as a symbol during Scottish coronations until King John Balliol used it for this purpose one final time in Scotland during his enthronement in 1292.  Four years later, King Edward I of England fancied himself this symbolic slab, so he took it back home and stored it under the throne in Westminster Abbey.  For the next seven centuries, the British housed the Stone of Destiny and last used the stone for the inauguration of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

England’s thievery enraged the Scots.  The British Empire had long developed a penchant for taking things that don’t belong to them.  They absorbed Scotland into her kingdom, but this little piece of hardened land was one chunk too many.  Although it was only a rock, this act of thievery symbolized England’s lack of respect for Scotland.  So in 1950, four Scottish students hatched a plan to pilfer the Stone from Westminster Abbey and return it to its rightful home.  

A few days before Christmas, the four students drove from Glasgow to London.  The next day Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart studied the watchmen’s shifts.  During the night, the two men along with Ian Hamilton snuck into the Poet’s Corner.  They reached King Edward’s tomb and his old throne.  The stone was nestled under the seat.  When the students attempted to remove the heavy stone, it fell to the floor and smashed into two fragments. They bundled the larger chunk inside a coat and dragged it outside and down the stairs. Hamilton carried the smaller piece and loaded it into the trunk of Kay Matheson’s car.  Matheson drove off, and Hamilton lugged the heaviest half into another getaway car.  The rear of the car sagged under the load of the Stone of Destiny.  

After a close encounter with a policeman near the Abbey, the students feared the authorities were alerted, so they ditched the biggest slab in a field.  For the first time in four hundred years, the border between England and Scotland was closed.  Two weeks later, the students reconvened with the two pieces of the stone, and they hired a stonemason to reattach them.  

In April the following year, the Stone of Destiny was discovered intact at Arbroath Abbey, where it is believed the Chancellor of Scotland composed the nation’s declaration of independence in 1320.  In 1952, one year before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the Stone of Destiny was returned to Westminster Abbey.  

All of the students confessed, but none of them were imprisoned for their actions.  Due to the publicity of the event, I’m sure England was worried that if penalties were enacted, then the nation’s relationship with Scotland would become even more strained.  The heist ignited the nationalist movement in post-war Scotland and rekindled the nation’s desire for independence from the United Kingdom.  Finally in 1996, the Stone of Destiny was welcomed home after being gone for seven hundred years.  After the homecoming parade down the Royal Mile, now the Stone resides in the Edinburgh Castle.      

After touring the castle, I had visited all of Edinburgh’s major haunts.  The weather was beautiful, but rain seemed a possibility.  I went back to the National Museum of Scotland to continue reading about life in the 1800s while I waited for the ominous clouds to pass.  

I learned about the blossoming wealth of Edinburgh and Glasgow during the Industrial Age that brought prosperity but also tuberculosis and other rampantly spreading diseases.  Edinburgh used to be somewhat of a cesspool.  Residents would chuck their waste out the window and shout, “Gardez l’eau!” which is French for, “Look out for the water!” but really means, “I’m throwing shit out my window!”  Since the Scottish can barely pronounce English let alone French, the word “l’eau” came out as loo.  So that’s why Britain and her colonies have a funny synonym for the bathroom.  

The museum was very pleasant once more, and I was sad to leave it.  I wanted to seize the day and maximize my experience because this was my last day in Scotland. When I left London, I was eager to escape the metropolis, but I was reluctant to leave Edinburgh.  During my brief visit, I have really forged a connection with this city.  As I strolled through a park lined with trees wearing pink leaves, I thought, “I could live here,” and I truly believe that.  

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself.  I have a tendency to fall head over heels for women I barely know.  I must become enamored with cities in a similar fashion.

Although rain is frequently forecasted and the annoying sounds of bagpipe music are inescapable, Edinburgh has an atmosphere of other-worldliness and intellect.  The birthplace of famous writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir Walter Scott, the city’s literary history is embodied in the gothic rocket ship on Princes Street. 

A statue of David Hume stands on the Royal Mile.  Students rub his golden toe for good luck on upcoming exams. 

His lingering presence reminds visitors that great thinkers sprang from this soil, and now their ghosts haunt the graveyards that inspire great writers of today like J.K. Rowling, who perused the cemeteries in search for memorable character names.  A man named Thomas Riddle died in 1806 and was buried in Edinburgh.  Now strangers visit his grave because a fictional character in a popular fantasy series bears his name.  

The marriage of the past and the present——markedly represented by the clear distinction of Old Town and New Town——is what makes Edinburgh such a unique place to visit.  The New Town has its Georgian architecture, the attached apartment buildings that curve along  the cobble-stone streets.  

There are modern, less-appealing buildings on the main drag.  Despite the concentration of commercialized chains, Edinburgh is not overwhelmed with recognizable capitalistic enterprises.  Even the New Town has clung onto many remnants of the past.  

Across the bridge, the Old Town has retained its medieval layout.  The fortress is perched atop Castle Rock, the site of an extinct volcano.  The Royal Mile slopes downward to the Holyrood Palace.  Along the way, narrow alleys called closes verge sideways from the main artery and lead down the hill.  

The closes open up into a concentration of pubs in the Grassmarket, or into Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, where Bobby the Skye Terrier guarded the grave of his owner John Gray for fourteen years.  Due to his diligent service, Bobby was buried just outside the graveyard, and a statue was erected in his honor.  

Every building and every graveyard seems to have an intriguing story behind it.  This quality is especially a bonus since much of Edinburgh’s backyard looks like Hogwarts.    

A few days earlier I met an American woman working in a fudge shop on the Royal Mile.  As she spoke with the customers before me, I was surprised by her accent, so I asked what brought her to Scotland.  She said she stumbled upon the university here and spoke with an advisor who was able to enroll her for a master’s program.  She fell in love with the campus, which she hadn’t planned on visiting.  Her immediate adoration quelled my anxiety.  Apparently, Edinburgh has a hypnotic effect on many of those who visit.