A Haunted Cementary and Biscuits

I will explain the biscuits eventually... All in good time!

But for your entertainment, a little dog selling his wares at the Fringe festival.

Most of the GEP (graduate entry program-i.e. the four year program that I am in) went on a little class trip the other evening on one of the Haunted Tours provided by City of the Dead Ghost Tours. Personally, I wanted to go on the Vaults tour which I think is a little more scary than a cemetery, but I was glad I decided to not go along...

I didn't just go along to scare people who have no idea that I like to creep in the shadows and grab people when they least suspect it... AND I behaved myself and didn't act on those impulses however much I wanted to.

So, the tour....

We arrived at the prescribed meeting place for the tour and in front of us was a Fringe street performer. This guy was great- he beat boxed (which normally I'm not a fan of) but this guy had an insane range of sound that included a very accurate imitation of a didgeridoo (the very long and low Australian instrument in case you are confused as to what I'm talking about). I did record a couple of samples on my phone (one of which included his harmonica) and can play through real player on my laptop and need to figure out how to convert it.

I will eventually share what I recorded... I hope... But in the meantime I get to enjoy it!

As we are standing there waiting a whisper heads through the crowd... People start pointing to a man standing by the meeting place sign and telling each other that he is our tour guide. I turn. And for turning I spend the entire night trying to not stare awkwardly (which I fail at... a lot).

This guy was wearing a long black leather jacket and his look added with how he was kinda standing there reminded me of Spike and Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel television series.

To catch up those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Spike and Angel were the vampires of the series but not your sparkle in sunlight vamps, your burst into flames (and then dust) within range of sunlight, holy water, and wooden stakes. As to quote me from a couple of weeks ago:

"My men don't sparkle, they burst into flames."

I'm sure that sums up my feelings about how Angel and Spike could tear the entire Cullens family apart without trying. That and this which is now one of my computer backgrounds:

Thank you Michelle :)

Ok, so I'm not saying he was a perfect match or anything, but he was almost like this Scottish version of Spike.

And my very blurry pictures and video don't do him justice ;)

So we get to the graveyard and our guide is amazing (even without the Spike thing). He was a great story teller and gave a lot of history of the city (some of which went over my head because I know I studied some of the kings of England/Scotland and some of their feuds but I got a little lost in amongst various things happening). Here's the problem with the graveyard. It's been around for a very long time. And according to our guide, they used to bury everyone in this limited space and just kept digging down trying to find spare room to put more dead bodies leading to untold numbers in the cemetery resulting in some unknown layers in some unknown number deep.


And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than that, it does.

Some untold number of the people buried there were plague victims. Yes, victims of the PLAGUE. And the plague doesn't die, it sticks to its host and waits until some unsuspecting person comes anytime later and can pick it up (luckily there are antibiotics for it now, but still, PLAGUE!!).



We've been practicing hand washing at school, so after this I went home and practiced it some more...

We also heard the story of the Mackenzie Ghost and Bloody Mackenzie himself who has himself a very large mausoleum (the largest in the entire graveyard). What you see is the top portion, there are two stories underneath and him and his family are at the very bottom.

But onwards to the good stuff that the guide also told us: pertaining to a certain fictional character that I went to a midnight showing of his final movie of, that my friends are crazy about.

At the far side of the cemetery is a wall and you can almost over see the wall a building that sort of looks like a castle.

Its not a castle.. It's a school.

And the name of the school?





Heriot's School.

And according to our guide (who I take it is not a Harry Potter fan at all as he was more excited at Edinburgh being the initial setting of Dracula where they are the dirty peasants making their way to the castle), the wall is part of one that was constructed to keep the British out but that this part was put together by wizards who wanted to keep people from watching them at their school where they liked to play a game on their broom sticks that involves throwing a ball through hoops in the sky...

Oh and the cafe where Rowling wrote part of Harry Potter is just outside the cemetery (I didn't go in).

To top this all off, you go for a wander through the cemetery (I went in the day and scared myself because there was this crazy old guy lying on the ground behind a tree yelling random things and there was something else, oh yeah, PLAGUE VICTIMS!).



And you wander over to some back corner of the cemetery.




As you wander around you look at various headstones (which many are posted on walls such as this one so I'm not sure if they are headstones at this point...??).



You notice a few interesting ones and wander over to take a look at them.



Here's an one that doesn't seem to out of the ordinary. It's one you might glance at if you're lucky to see it hidden in the back corner.



I can't make out what this says... A bit closer, perhaps?



Thomas Riddell?? Tom Riddell is buried here? Well, I suppose it's okay so long as he didn't decide to have a son and name him the same thing...



.....


Don't worry. I stomped on the Dark Lord's grave a little to make sure he was dead.

I've seen the movies, he just doesn't like to die and stay dead!!

So to every Harry Potter fan I know, come visit me and we'll go find all of the important sights! (including 9 3/4)


Oh and Biscuits. Today I got very excited over these cookies (typical I know). They were cookie wafer things smothered in chocolate and either caramel or mint in the middle (I was eating fist fulls of both...). After to one of my classmates who is from the UK, I was told him how pleased to eat cookies after the farm animal practical and he stops me and says "They were biscuits."

Me: O.o ???

Apparently here, what I was eating is a biscuit. Cookie is a term solo refereed to the round things with flour and chocolate chips.

Well, at least I haven't made any serious blunders yet...