Life in Switzerland: October 2010

Most of October was spent working on our International Consulting Projects, and we had two presentations to give, one on our recommedations, and a final one on implementation. After my team presented our recommendations to our client they agreed so much with our number one recommendation that they told us to put together the full business case so they could present it to "Bob", the CEO of the whole company. This was the best news we could have received, because it meant they thought the option we liked best was really the best way to go, but it also meant that in just over 10 days we had to put together the full report, including cost structure, human resources needed, timeline, and most importantly, get buy-in from the patient groups who would be involved.

My team split up, and each took different functions. Three of us volunteered to travel Europe to meet with the patient groups, and I was assigned to Edinburgh for a second time. On a Wednesday afternoon I had to search planes and hotels for next day travel, and therefore found myself back in Edinburgh 24 hours later on a Thursday night for a meeting Friday. The meeting went splendidly, and my contact gave his complete buy-in. Since he was one of the most powerful patient groups in Europe, this was some of the best news possible, and made the mad dash trip worth it.

It was less expensive for me to fly back Sunday instead of Saturday, and since I like Edinburgh a lot I didn't mind at all to stay the weekend and explore. What made it even better was that I had a friend from Aberdeen who was also in Edinburgh for the weekend, so we had a blast catching up on life while walking around the tourist areas. The highlight of the weekend was the Ghost Tour we took late on Saturday night into the famous South Bridge vaults (as seen on BBC and Most Haunted). Edinburgh is rumored to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, with numerous paranormal experiences recorded by many people from all corners of the world, who all describe the same experiences.

The tour started with a few of the most grisly tales of historical figures who were publicly hanged, told in graphic detail, and followed with a short walk through some of the main streets before we descended a very old narrow staircase into the dungeons that make up the bridge vaults. Basically, when Edinburgh city planners decided to build bridges over a big valley separating two sides of the city they thought it was pointless to just build arches when the space under the bridge could be filled in and used for something useful. So in the same stone used for the bridge they created many rows of interconnected rooms with some intended to be shops and others intended to be storage units for local businessmen. After about a year most shopkeepers realized the bridge was not waterproofed, and so was too damp to be used for business or storage. After the shopkeepers moved out squatters moved in, along with any disreputable group that needed a hidden place to hold a meeting. Therefore the conditions below deteriorated rapidly into nearly unlivable conditions, except that Edinburgh was so overcrowded that people lived in any space imaginable.

After the bridges were finally cleared they were sealed off for many years, until in the mid 1990s a few tour groups got permission to take sightseers down for visits. Around 1994 some very strange things began to happen. Tourists saw several different apparitions, which in itself sounds like just make-believe, except that many people from many countries told the same stories with no prior knowledge of the events. One of the most recorded incidents involved one particular corner of one vault room. During one year 8 separate female tourists from different countries who were on different tours who all stood in the same corner of the same vault room had their hair grabbed by someone behind them, only to discover there was no one there. Some were even pushed to the ground by the force. After those experiences the tour guides began to make the men stand on that side of the room to keep the women safe, however the ghost didn't like that and began assaulting the tour guides themselves instead, knocking several to the ground.

I can say that I generally don't believe in this kind of stuff, but being down in the pitch black vaults was creepy enough in itself, even with a tour group of nearly 20 people and I was happy to get back to the surface. The guide who sold us our tickets said she never went down to the vaults alone.

Edinburgh at nighttime when there are not many people out and about is spooky and eery, but beautiful at the same time. The city grows on me more every time I'm there.