We can all relate to one another, no matter where we live now

So I meant to get back to the prisoner dungeons of Edinburgh castle in my last post - I hope you'll find this as moving as I did.

In one part of the castle at the very top is an entrance to the prisoner dungeons that I found most moving to me as an American! I really thought this part of the experience was done well on the part of whomever upkeeps the castle. As I entered and walked down a dark passageway there were recorded voices of what it would have sounded like back then, perhaps around 1700's and especially around 1781. The first room I entered was filled with masked hammocks posing as sleeping prisoners with a few awake and talking back and forth to one another. The smell mimicked what apparently it smelled like back then - very stenchy and mossy - like a basement gone bad! A table top displaying cut bread and some cutlery lay on the right and loads of rope, materials, etc. were strewn along in places allowing them to hang up their sleeping quarters, yet giving them space below to hang out, I guess. Around the end to the next room you find another area - can't remember what was in there but what I do remember very vividly was a recorded conversation between two prisoners talking about freedom and coming to America - "that's where we can find our freedom, man! America! I've heard they have written down their rights! We need to get to America!" The conversation between the two chaps was moving to me - that's how I used to feel about America - a place where we have rights and freedoms - no where else has those rights. For a moment I felt myself slip back in time to my perception of what it meant to be an American. Just for a moment. Then suddenly I lost it and felt a different feeling; a more recent feeling. One in which I felt a sense of betrayal in that belief. wow.

Next corridor in the dungeon was an incredible display of 4 large, thick, wooden doors with graffiti. The doors still had the inscriptions of either names, initials or even pictures denoting the prisoners thoughts or feelings at that time - amazing! Beside each door was a sign educating you important things so you could make out what they meant or their names and where they were from. At one door I stood beside 2 french men - never met them before. We both gazed at a door that had inscriptions from both new Americans and Frenchmen captured during the American independence war from England. Wow. I was completely moved by the fact that as we both stand there in the presence of this history, we both faught together for the belief in one thing; our ancestors/countrymen right here in front of us! I said something to one of the French guys - "wow, that's our people right here fighting together" - I think he was as moved as I was and I felt a certain bond with him, if even for a moment. It was an amazing feeling - hard to describe.