Skip to main content

Fist Fights

Hi everyone!
Okay so all of you who know me know that I come from Cape Cod. Which is very sheltered. A legitimate bubble if you will. The only excitement in regards to other people/visitors we really get is in the summer months. But the people who visit are obviously very wealthy and (usually) pretty well behaved. I then went to college, at UNH, which is obviously a little bit more "real life"-ish, but still very sheltered. I haven't really been outside of New England, except for vacations. So what I am basically saying is that I am very sheltered. Which I honestly love, because it has allowed me to live in the most beautiful place. But even going to Boston makes me a little nervous. I don't love cities because there is always so much going on.
So now you may ask yourself.. why did she even study abroad?? In a city?? I recognized the fact that my eyes have been closed to the "real world" and knew that I had to experience it. I do enjoy living in a city, it has been less difficult to figure out than I was expecting, and I am definitely getting experiences that I certainly would not be getting on the Cape.
This brings us to the title of this post --- fist fights. First of all, we know that Scotland is a big drinking country, so I have witnessed a few bar fights. Nothing too out of the ordinary as I have seen that before. But something that I have never seen is a fight out on the street. Myself and a few friends went shopping on Princes St (one of the main streets here). We were walking along and see 2 homeless men fully fighting with security guards. It was an all out brawl, with the homeless men and the security guards rolling around, tackling each other down, the homeless men were biting the guards... it was the whole 9 yards. I obviously FREAK out because I was like oh my god they're going to somehow drag me into their fight (far fetched, but it went through my mind). My friends are standing back, but not too far back, watching/enjoying the show... other bystanders are pulling out phones to record videos, snapchats, etc. At this point I am standing behind the bus stop thing trying to hide and being like "guys lets GO" but they were like no no just another minute. Eventually they realized that I was actually freaked out by the whole thing and we left. I have never seen something like that in person!! I have only heard of things like that, whereas my friends were used to experiences like this.
A few days later, I was on the bus (public transit is HUGE here, another big difference from home, shoutout cape cod RTA), and another homeless man attempted to get on the bus, with a trashbag, baggy pants, and sideways hat. I am frightened (obviously), and he is yelling at people on the bus, passengers were getting off out of frustration, etc. He winds up being allowed onto the bus, after only paying a fraction of his fare and saying "that's good enough". I am basically curled into the fetal position at the back of the bus, and finally Anna came back and sat with me. The man quieted down and didn't cause any more problems which was good, but it was so scary for me!!
SO basically the takeaway from this story is
a) I need to get off Cape Cod more
b) there are a lot of homeless people in Edinburgh
c) it is good that I am stepping out of my comfort zone and experiencing what the world is really like!!
Hope these people clean up their acts.. but at least when I'm around let's #stayclassyscotland ;)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Copenhagen

Anna and I spent the weekend of November 14-17 in Copenhagen. I had always wanted to visit there, and so had she so we were very excited!! We got there really late at night on Thursday and had to go find the hostel, which was quite an adventure. We wound up taking trains and walking there and it was very confusing and stressful. We got to the hostel, which was very nice, and we only had 1 roommate that first night who seemed very odd but quiet so she worked for me! The next morning we woke up and had all sorts of plans on what we should do for the day, but we decided to go shopping instead. There were so many stores!! We walked by a shoe store and I was obsessed with some of the boots in there. We’ll get back to that. There was a lego store which of course was a thrill for me and we spent around an hour in there because I was enjoying myself so much. Apparently lego was created in Denmark so not only was it exciting to go to a lego store in general, it was extra exciting bec...