Terror in the Tavern!

The university I am currently visiting offers incoming and returning students a large list of activities and in turn the opportunity to party like it's 1923 during the entire first week of the semester. Mayhem? Perhaps. Two of the activities in which I partook included a ghost tour and a good old fashioned pub crawl. Some of the things I moderately enjoy in this world are ghosts and spirits. And with an incredible student discount I downright love them.

The day of the ghost tour I made my way to the famous stretch of road between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace known to tourists and other non-natives as The Royal Mile, only getting lost once after arriving at my intended location. I met up with some of the people I had become acquainted with over the course of the week and at precisely 3 o'clock a woman in a cape showed up and escorted us all into a dark side-alley. The tour was broken up into 2 parts: the above ground part and the below ground part. During our time on the surface we were guided around and told several very disgusting things about the Scotsmen and Scotswoman of old. We were told of their very hygienic habit of throwing their toilet waste out onto the street at specific times of the day, which consequently gave us a very rude term for describing someone who is intoxicated. Another interesting tidbit we picked up was that women would attend executions and attempt to catch the blood of the recently headless on their hankerchifs in the name of fashion. Additonaly and rather Surprisingly John Knox, the founder of Presbyterianism, is buried underneath spot 23 of a government car park. After concluding the above ground portion of the tour we were herded into yet another dark alleyway by our caped tour guide then filed up some awkwardly steep stairs and into a very small and dark room filled with tourture devices. Our guide described the purpose of each terrible tool in gory detail, reaffirming the fact that our ancestors were horrible people. One device was made to melt a woman's face off, another was designed to coax a rat to use your stomach to recreate The Great Escape. After our guide was absolutely positive we were all comfortable she led us down into the potential set of a horror movie. Under the streets of Edinburgh there exist a system of stereotypically awful tunnels that had once been the homes and final resting places of the illegally homeless. We were treated to stories of witches, ghosts, and people being cooked alive in dripping rooms lit by very creepy green safety lights. In the final room, which regrettably did not have a safety light, our wonderful guide finished yet another gruesome story and switched off her flashlight, prompting someone to pull out their iPhone as a replacement. Back in the light of day we were directed to the nearby student bar to recover our nerves.

Because of a certain recent film I have been as of late particularly keen on pub crawls, so I jumped at the chance to participate and be introduced to several of Edinburgh's finest pubs. This crawl was littered with youths who very recently acquired the legal right to partake in alcoholic substances, therefore it was particularly entertaining. I ventured to the first pub accompanied by a large group of my fellow patriots, a couple of Germans, and a guy from Australia, via bus. Upon reaching our destination we signed in and were gifted with matching blue t-shirts and encouraged to enjoy a bit of beer before being hurried to the next pub by 2 people who were hired to make us party. Over the course of the evening we visited a collection of 6 pubs and clubs where we shared deep intellectual discussion and amusing anecdotes all in the name of a pleasent night out. We met up with friends we already knew, met people from all over the world, made new friends, and listend to a dubstep version of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." There was foosball, dancing, laughing, drinking, and at one point an Irish house band playing "Play that Funky Music" surprisingly well. We overtook each venue in a wave of blue t-shirt wearing alcohol fuled energy for America. As we eventually made our way back to our respective flats in arrow-straight lines I was hit with the realization that I was having what could only be described as a really good time and had been having what could only be described as a really good time pretty much since I arrived. Before I left home I kept referring to my adventures in the UK as a sort of coming of age experience, and so far it's going really, really well.


PARTY MUSIC!