Grasses and Ghosts

Today we had a lovely Scottish day! A group of us decided (on Dr. Foy's instruction) to take advantage of the sunshine and go on a hike! Our rooms directly back the Holyrood Forest and Arthur's Seat, so we headed up the mountain.

Arthur's Seat!

Once more, the weather pulled through for us and we had a fantastic hike! 360º view of Scotland and gorgeous the whole way around!

After our frolic through the hills, we had some lunch at a cute sandwich shop down the road and made some scattered plans to head out to St. Andrew's in the morning!

But we still wanted to take advantage of the day, however, and walked down to the Royal Mile once more. It looked different without the hubbub of the Olympics!

Piper!

But the most important part of the day was yet to come! A ghost tour was in the works for the evening! We all met outside St. Giles' cathedral to join in on the City of the Dead Tour.

Spoooooky

We had a fantastic tour guide. A great storyteller is essential! We did the "Double Dead" tour, which lead us through the "underground city" catacombs and through Greyfriar's graveyard. The tour was creepy, to be sure!

Our guide and the group

Bobby!

Dem bones

The damn mausoleum!

The tour was chilling and informative! We learned a great deal about the "underground city" and the entities that haunt it. Our tour guid even turned out the lights at one point and let us soak in the darkness. He said that to make the spirits happy, he had to make us scared!

The graveyard was a tour I had taken before, so I remember all of the stories. Poor Greyfriar's Bobby. No one is a fan of that little dog! When we reached the crypt where the infamous McKenzie's poltergeist was said to frequent, we were all prepared for a great finale story! And got it we did. Our guid told his final tale of a girl feeling an icy grip around her neck at the back of the mausoleum that we were standing in. As we leaned in and watched him raise his hand to his own neck...

Some dude races in, screaming, clad in all black and scares the living hell out of each and every one of us.

We all flattened to the wall, screaming. I fell over and I'm sure I took half of the girls down with me. It was completely. Unnecessary.

Our guide apologized for the "jump," as he called it. He said that they stopped doing it for a while because it made the tours seem a little "hokey". But he told us that they got more complaints about not having a "jump" than when they had it, so back the ghoulish man came! It was not okay. At all.

I guess it was a proper way to end a good Scottish ghost tour. I was creeped out enough without a scary man sending me crippling to the ground in a dead man's tomb, but we all got our money's worth! Glad to do it!

After I (hopefully) sleep tonight, St. Andrew's is planned for tomorrow! We'll see where the day takes us!