Our hostel was situated in a renovated church in Glasgow. The weather was dark and gloomy most of the time, but that helped to set the mood for the few days leading up to Halloween. We strolled around one of the most picturesque cemeteries you would ever mosey through, with headstones hundreds of years old and some illegible as they protruded from the ground at all sorts angles. After the cemetery we decided to visit the Tenants beer factory. We were able to walk along the entire factory line, starting with brewing and ending with packaging before an hour and a half of UNLIMITED taste testing, which we took full advantage.
On our last night in Glasgow we met up with one of Maggie’s friends from a previous trip for dinner, drinks, and some bar trivia. The people you meet along the road are half the fun of traveling. Though Maggie hadn’t seen Allie in 6 years and met her in New Zealand, it goes to show you how deep connections you make on the road can be. After this trip, I can’t imagine the network of friends I will have to go visit or host in St. Louis. (As I type this, I’m on a bus to Paris to meet up with two friends from Australia, and one from New Zealand that we had previously met in Spain and England!)
Arriving in Edinburgh, we were greeted by another church that was converted into a hostel. Our room was a wooden box with 4 sets of bunk beds that sat where pews would typically lie in front of the alter of the church. It was unique, to say the least. An old church was the perfect set up to spend our Halloween night. As for costumes, the three of us decided to be a pack of Huskies, no wolf left behind.
The night before Halloween we roamed around town trying to hit all the highlights we could for our short stay in Edinburgh. We visited a few Harry Potter landmarks, like the Elephant House Café where J.K. Rowling wrote several of her novels, followed by the grave of Thomas Riddle, and caught a nice view of the original castle that the book was based on for Hogwarts.
To round out the night, we decided to take a tour of the underground parts of town. Hundreds of years ago, as police enforced rules on the streets above the city, many homeless and fugitives fled underground in a serious of vaults. There were no rules in the underground: rape, murder, brothels, and muggings were common, leading to the average life span of two years for men and one for woman.
As we stood in the underground vault under the dim, green light and the slow trickle of water permeating through the porous limestone ceilings, our guide began to explain that this was one of the most active locations of paranormal activity in the world. He began to tell us of the several different levels of spirits we could encounter. “1- a spirit that you can see but they cannot see you 2- a spirit that you can see and they can also see you where an interaction could occur 3-demonic sprits that…” He stops mid sentence as a commotion begins to my right. As I turn to see what’s happening, I hear the piercing slam of a woman’s skull crashing into the limestone floor as her urine turns her jeans to a darker shade of navy. She begins snoring as if in a deep sleep. After a minute or so, she starts to open her eyes that have a stupor haze to them. She seemed to be around 40 years old and as we asked if she had any previous history of being narcoleptic or epileptic, and her family said she had never had any episodes before. Her family then helped her to the exit of the vault, along with half of the rest of the tour group, who no longer wanted to continue. The few of us remaining decided to continue the tour, it was the night before Halloween, how could we not?
Halloween isn’t as popular in the UK as in America, but we made the best of it. Our church of a hostel put up decorations, set out desserts, and had a small costume party for all the travelers. After visiting with fellow travelers at the hostel party, our trio of a wolf pack took to the rainy streets like a pack of wet dogs to find a bar for one last Halloween drink, and maybe some howling (and don’t forget the leg humping). The next morning we said our goodbyes as Tara headed back to the U.S. and Marge and I headed back to England to visit her family.