MEDIEVAL MURDER MYSTERY UNEARTHED!!! ..........(Or, would you like to take a little stroll with me?)

I am going come back to Macalester next year, and be in big trouble: I am so, so spoiled here! Part of it is the weather, as I mentioned before, which though far from tropical is positively laughable when compared with the ridiculousness that is the midwest this time of year. Part of it is the class structure, meaning that all the work and stress for a class is concentrated on one paper, and one exam, leaving oodles of free time ("'Free time'? What is this 'free time' you speak of?!," demand all the Mac students in puzzlement). Part of it is the city: tiny and compact, meaning that a five minute walk in any direction with get you somewhere exciting, guaranteed. Part of it is my accommodations, which are not only above a bar and around the corner from three different clubs, but more importantly (in an academic sense at least), are less than ten minutes walk to class. Closer by far than lovely 1808 is to Macalester...

My my, she DOES look cranky, doesn't she...
Well, I suppose she ought to: this is
Mary Queen of Scots, with her husband,
Lord Darnley who had recently killed her
scribe and close friend. Not a move guaranteed
to get you into your wife's good graces
(or her bed). Perhaps she was already
hankering for a whiff of gunpowder when
this engraving was made...

"Robertson's Close" is the name of the residence hall where I currently reside, and also the name of the tiny alley where it is located. To get to my classes I walk up the steep, cobbled slope of the Close, avoiding stray bits of broken glass, past Mother India restaurant (curse you and your delicious smells!) and across Infirmary street, trying not to get killed by the taxis and busses that scream by. Once upon a time, there was a hospital not far from here I think (hence the name 'infirmary'), which makes sense considering that the Old College which dominates the view across the busy street used to house the medical school of the University of Edinburgh. Currently the Old College contains a seemingly random collection of classes and is partly under construction: the plan was to build a new courtyard in the center, I believe, but because the College, like much of Edinburgh, was built upon the ruins of an older building, in this case a Medieval Church with its own cemetery, progress has slowed significantly due to an archeological dig taking place. In addition to simply recovering and preserving artifacts and ancient buildings (and exhuming 14th century skeletons... no joke), they are also unearthing evidence relating to a 16th century scandal and murder mystery! Apparently Mary Queen of Scots's second husband of only two years (and the father of the boy who would later become  James the I of England and VI of Scotland) Lord Darnley went to stay at at the hostel associated with the church that used to stand there while he was convalescing from what was either smallpox or (goodness...) syphilis. In the middle of one February night, the building suddenly exploded  ~ apparently the cellars had been rigged with enough gunpowder to flatten a cathedral ~ and the reverberations were felt all over the city. Amazingly, Lord Darnley was not killed in the blast, and we know he managed to escape to the small walled garden in back of the kirk. He did not get further though ~ his body was later found, strangled, in the back of the garden, some sources say clad in a night shirt, others say in more ordinary attire but with his trousers about his ankles. Mary Queen of Scots had intended to stay that night in the very room which suffered the worst of the blast and changed her mind at the last minute, and people speculated that the explosion was meant for the then unpopular monarch. However, suspicion fell upon Mary herself when she appeared to mourn less than was truly proper for her murdered husband, perhaps understandable due to the fact that he had a reputation for womanizing and had been implicated in the death of her Italian scribe and confidant less than a year before, but such disregard was unacceptable none the less. Later, when the man who had supplied the gunpowder for the explosion was inexplicably acquitted, and then  just happened to end up in Mary's bed first as her lover then later as her (questionably legitimate) third husband, her part in the affair became rather more dubious....

Mmmmm, scandals are so delicious!

I don't have any classes in the Old College, alas (although it might be a good thing - I would likely spend far too much time gazing out of the window, hoping to catch sight of something ancient and morbid) so to get to class I keep walking past the Old College, and end up wandering by the festival theater, big, glass-fronted and modern, and apparently the site of rather a lot of the Edinburgh Fringe festival in August. I am pretty disappointed that I won't be there then ~ it sounds amazing. Some reports state that the population of the city doubles for the month of August! Hard to imagine really, particularly because I simply cannot fathom where they PUT them all. (Honestly. Where do people sleep? Tents on the cobbles?) The Indian, Thai and Italian places across the street take full advantage of the theater-going population, offering discounts for pre-performance meals. They also seduce hungry Uni students with their aromas and promises of 5 pound buffets (oh dear lord, so much amazing food). Then there are the discount shops with their random assortment of oddments gaudily displayed in the windows, the cheap diner-ish restaurants, the greasy chips-pizza-kebab joints, and the... I don't even know what it call it. Bookie store? Gambling locale? Place-where-you-can-do-various-things-related-to-betting-that-I-neither-understand-nor-am-interested-in? Two halal grocers are around the corner, and the turbaned workers are usually setting out bins of thick cucumbers, browning bananas and luscious pomegranates when I pass in the mornings, and unloading crates of rather frightening looking meats in the evenings. I catch sight of my reflection in the large windows of Elephants And Bagels cafe as I pass, and I swear it is an effort every single day not to go in and get one of their delicious mochas. So much temptation, so little money... ! More streets to cross, more busses to avoid, and more tempting caffeine to resist: as if the cafes weren't enough, there are little portable stands that sell pastries and beverages at various ideal locations on campus, all of them, it seems, where I must past them on my way to Celtic Lit in the mornings. I have only succumbed once so far. Be PROUD of me.

On the way back to the Close I usually walk past the student centres and through the underpass (thereby avoiding some of the homicidal drivers). The acoustics in the Potterrow underpass are amazing: walking through there makes every step sound loud, ringing, determined, intentional, important. If I listen to myself walk, I can sometimes convince myself that I know where I am going and why, what my "purpose" is, and each footfall echoes clearly and decidedly (especially if I am in heels ~ everything about my life is so much more important when I am in heels). Half the time, though, a street musician with bongos, or a saxophone, or sometimes a violin is playing underneath the low cement ceiling, drowning out the clack of my shoes on the stone with thunderous, exuberant music, following the passing students with hopeful eyes. After I emerge, assuming that I can resist the lure of the Old College and its muddy, mossy glory I find myself once again on South Bridge, the main street (which is also called North Bridge, Nicholson, South Clerk, and many other things... Streets names apparently apply only for about two blocks before they are, without warning, changed) across from the ever-alluring Tesco with its shelves bursting with McVittie's "digestive biscuits" (aka cookies) and Mars Bars and coupons explaining all the deals you can get by "topping up" your cell phone there. If I make a left, and continue past the store with the gorgeous, ridiculously cheap pashmina scarves and past the big, new, shiny bookstore store as well as tiny, grungy, coffee-stains-and-dog-eared-pages used-book-store, a stretch of street which is my personal hell ~ the TEMPTATION! Books AND scarves! It just isn't FAIR!!! ~ I get back to Infirmary street, nearly home. Half a block further, however, and I come to one of the best parts of this whole lovely city: a tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop, called the Piemaker. Meat pies, my friends, are absolutely amazing; and also frighteningly cheap. Paying only 1.55 for a large pie makes me crane my neck a bit to see if I can catch Mrs. Lovett's gathered lace skirts swishing around in the back, and strain my ears half expecting to catch the echoes of "My Friends" wafting from the floor above... because really, if they aren't offing stupid American tourists and cooking them into Cornish Pasties and sausage rolls and haggis pies, then how on earth can something so good cost so little, especially in this expensive country?!? However they do it, it is brilliant and makes my life SO much better.

I am way too tempted to close with a Sweney Todd song... and as my undying love Oscar Wilde says, the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Cheers all. :D

Sweney Todd: Little Priest