AN AMERICAN tourist was left bamboozled by the roads in Scotland’s capital, failing to get her head around the city’s infrastructure.
Beth Gameren was exploring the streets of Edinburgh with her family on Sunday but couldn’t understand the multiple levels that the city was built on.
The 32-year-old Alabama mum is well-travelled and currently lives in Italy but it was the streets of Edinburgh’s Old Town that finally got the better of her.
The hilarious video begins with Beth imposed over a video of South Bridge as people can be seen walking along the street.
The on-screen text reads: “Edinburgh Scotland felt like a glitch in the matrix”.
Beth begins: “I do not understand how these roads are built in Edinburgh, Scotland.”
The camera pans around the street to reveal Cowgate far below as she continues: “We are on a main road but then you look over the edge of this kind of bridge you’re crossing and there’s another main beneath you.”
She looks confusedly at the camera as she adds: “It’s built on solid ground but the one you’re on is also solid ground and there’s one building connecting both roads.”
She then hilariously repeats the footage as she pleads with viewers to watch the video again.
She comments: “It’s so strange to me. I know Edinburgh is built on hills, but it was tripping us out.
“We did not understand how this works. Look at the building. It is one building.”
The camera pans to a building on Cowgate as she says: “The [ground] floor is there.”
The camera pans back up onto where the family is standing as Beth then points while saying: “Then also up here is also a first floor.
“Maybe this sounds dumb. I’m trying to make it to where you can understand because we are like, standing above an arch.”
The on-screen text adds: “I know I will get ‘what a dumb American’ comments. It was just architecture I haven’t seen anywhere else I have travelled.”
Beth continues: “On either side is like, completely sold, like a wall. It’s not like there is a road running parallel underneath the road.
The displayed text reads: “No bridge columns. The buildings are the columns, I guess.”
The camera cuts again as the confused American tries to explain her thought process to viewers: “It’s solid walls. It’s just this main road criss-crossing underneath.”
“I’m trying not to sound crazy and make you understand and if you’ve ever visited there or you live in Scotland, hopefully you know what I’m talking about.”
Beth took to social media yesterday to share her baffling discovery.
She wrote in the post: “I am very happy to take explanations in the comments. I am somewhat well-travelled, and I haven’t seen architecture like this in any other city.
“There was actually a whole part of the city of Edinburgh that they built over called Mary King’s Close.
“It was streets and buildings that they simply built on top of, and the streets and buildings are preserved below the city.
“You can visit it on the Royal Mile. I assume it’s something along those lines. Where they built up between buildings so there weren’t as many hills? It is very fascinating.”
The post received iver 18,500 likes and more than 1,560 comments from Scots left tickled by Beth’s amazement.
One person wrote: “Who’s going to tell her about Mary King’s Close?
Another said: “This also confuses your Google Maps when you are walking. I thought I knew best and messed it up completely.
A third commented: “Born and raised here but [I] definitely had this exact conversation when I was drunk up town for the first time as a teenager.”
A fourth added: “Do they not have a third dimension in America?”
