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Anna Overseas

7/9/2005

I didn't see anything going on around town today, and I was out and about for at least a few hours in the downtown, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say things seem to be calming down. I did hear that there was a bomb scare in Birmingham, but I haven't heard any of the details, and I'm almost afraid to check online.

As for what I will tentatively call real life, things are going surprisingly well. I'm beginning to get used to the buses here (I have finally ridden on the top of a double decker bus. I don't feel the need to repeat the experience again soon -- they sway), and work is at the point of being tediously boring for most of the night. I know, I quit my last job partly because it was boring, but I'm not nearly so bored during the day. I'm still squeeing to people that there's a Castle! In the City! That I can go to!

Tonight at work there was a wedding, which involved a lot of men in kilts. *grin* Kenny tells me that yes, kilts at weddings are normal here, and that yes, there will be a lot of weddings. Since I just came to Scotland for the boys in kilts (or the sheep), I'm a very content person.

Too bad I haven't been paid.

Anna stopped here at 11:06 PM

7/8/2005

I think it was Tuesday that I started to really see the effects of all the protests in the city, but the days tend to lose their way when you work nights.

We were sitting around the hostel chatting about jobs and stuff when we heard this awful racket outside. Chanting and stomping and all sorts of noise, and we quickly ran to the window. You have to picture a Canadian, an Australian, a Kiwi and an American, all hanging out of a second storey window on the Royal Mile, trying to see what the heck was going on outside.

I finally saw this... "parade" of people walking down North Bridge. They were wearing black, and chanting something. We couldn't hear them very clearly. They were being followed by police officers.

Later on, I had to get down Princes Street. I was very lost in thought (and quite tired), so I was quite a ways down before I noticed there was no traffic except pedestrians. I had noticed the police at the head of the road, though. When I got far enough along, there was a huge crowd of police blocking off the sidewalk. They told me I would have to go around, but before I could get moving, they were all called away. There were sirens coming up, and I turned to see more police cars coming.

When I got past the police, I saw a bunch of officers on horseback, and an entire area of Princes Street Gardens cut off and surrounded by police. There were tons of people rubber necking around, and I will admit that I was trying to see what was going on. I never saw the actual protest, but I could hear some of what they were saying.

"What do we want?"

"Blah blah blah!"

"When do we want it?"

"NOW!"

I listened for a bit but I never did catch what they wanted. (As a note for my more revolutionary friends, please enunciate when you're demanding something.)

So that was Tuesday.

I found out that a lot of the police presence yesterday was because of two suspicious packages they found in the city. Neither one was a bomb, thank God, but the police squads were sent out to deal with it anyway. I'm given to understand both packages were blown up.

I'm not quite sure at the mood of the city, which is very frustrating to me. I genuinely like working nights, but I feel very cut off from everything. I don't see a lot of people at night, and my coworkers are either Polish or Kenny, who suffers from "I hate everyone" syndrome. I really must get around to reading the Edinburgh blogs that I have bookmarked on my laptop.

Anna stopped here at 9:40 PM

7/7/2005

I don't even know where to start.

I slept in today, and only recently found out about the terrorist attacks in London, and everything here is on such tight alert you can't even move without seeing police. Earlier today, I was passed by two different convoys of police vans. Each can carries at least 6 officers, and there were 11 vans and one station wagon in the second one I saw. I was a little too much in shock to count the number in the first one. The sirens are almost constant, and I have no idea what's going on in the city in terms of protests, or if there even are any. When I was on Princes Street today, everything seemed quiet.

It wasn't until I got up to the hostel and saw the T.V. out in the lobbey that I had any idea what had happened. It had such parallels with September 11th, something I'm sure almost everyone is going to call attention to. But the silent T.V., tuned to the BBC with a ticker tape at the bottom talking about the various reactions and what happened, while everyone stood around it in shock. I didn't even know the hostel had a t.v.

I had other things to say, about the protests yesterday and the way the city has been shut down again, but I'm thinking that can wait.

Anna stopped here at 12:10 PM

7/6/2005

It's funny, because I spent a couple of days this week thinking, "How odd, I'm not feeling any of the culture shock or isolation that I felt in China." I know part of that's because I'm sharing space with people who have a lot of the same experiences I have, because I'm surrounded by people who speak English, that I'm a lot busier and a lot better prepared than I was when I went to China.

But, yesterday, I got broadsided by the culture shock. It was one of those things where all of a sudden the only solution is to just pack it all in, go home, admit that you can't handle living overseas and spend the rest of your life living in an apartment alone until you die a bitter old maid.

(Yes, I considered this as a viable alternative to continuing to live in Scotland.)

It comes down to the whole issue of trying to build something akin to a life here.

I tried yesterday to get a doctor's appointment. I'm not deathly ill or anything like that, I just wanted to get something looked at. No big deal, right? In Canada, this involves either going to any of a number of walk-in clinics, or calling up your doctor's office and making an appointment.

This is not what happened.

I was given a doctor's address by the hostel, and went there in the early afternoon. I was still pretty tired, being that I work nights, but I figured it wouldn't be too bad. I could go in and either get in quickly, or get an appointment, or something.

What happened was, after finding the street (streets do not work the same in the UK as they do in Canada, but more on that some other day), I walked into the doctor's office, spent three minutes being told that I couldn't get an appointment there, they'd send me someplace "closer", and left again. The receptionist gave me a phone number of a place that wouldn't take me, and they gave me the phone number of another place that wouldn't take me, who gave me the phone number of a place that will see me a week from Thursday.

This isn't really a big deal, I know, and I just filed it away for future reference. No fast doctor's appointments, no big deal. But it sorta soured my mood, which made the rest of the day a huge trial that I didn't want to go through.

Which made the issues with the various banks that much more difficult to deal with.

My employer (Kenny, which I mention because he shares a first name with my brother, and I want to make it clear if I start ranting about Kenny, that it's not my brother) wrote me a letter with my address, the address of the hotel, and my rate of pay on it. He assured me this will help me to get a bank account. I took this letter to three different banks.

The first one told me it isn't good enough, that I need a council tax bill or an electricity bill or something that indicates that I'm a resident of this country. I guess working here and having a PO Box rented for a year and all of that doesn't count.

The second one would be more than happy to set me up an account. All I need to do is fill in a bunch of forms, mail them to the head office, and I should have one in two to six weeks.

The third only makes appointments to make new accounts every other Tuesday between 9 and 11 (okay, I exaggerate, it's every day from 9 - 11), and wouldn't accept a letter from my employer as proof of residence.

And at that point I marched back into the hostel, threw my files against the wall, and started raging at the injustice of it all.

I started ranting at the sweet girl from Finland, Saara, who just let me freak out for a while, assuring me that I wasn't over-reacting (I was) and that everything would be okay, that yes, this is strange, and that it's not like this where she comes from, and everything will be okay. She was very supportive, but we also exchanged stories about the number of hoops a "foriegner has to jump through to get a flat or a bank account. She told me about an agency who basically refused to help her in any way, even though she would have given them money to help her find a flat. It's all crazy.

She was very nice, and I calmed down pretty quickly, but the sense of frustration stuck with me all day. It feels very much like Scotland doesn't want people here. I have heard of that from time to time in the paper, but it's the first time in an English speaking country I've felt like an outsider, like someone who can't get in. It's a very strange feeling, and I haven't quite figured out how to deal with it.

But, I have the next two days off, and I think I'll buy deep fat fried Mars Bars, and try not to start yelling at random Scots about how much their country makes me want to tear out my hair and go home as a bald, bitter woman.

Anna stopped here at 6:47 AM

7/5/2005

I got so used to the sound of sirens over the past few days that I can now sleep through them. I haven't witnessed a lot of the chaos myself, but I've heard some stories.

Apparently the protesters/anarchists/whatever were throwing large rocks at the HMV just behind our hotel. We have some rooms right above them, so the staff here decided to lock the doors before anything happened. I went past the HMV today, and only one of the windows is cracked. So, it's not as bad as it could be, I guess, but I'm glad I wasn't working there.

I heard from one of my coworkers that there were moltov cocktails thrown at a McDonald's in the city, but I haven't heard that from anywhere else, so I don't know if it's true.

The police here deal with problems by using their batons. The way they describe it in the papers is surreal, considering I'm used to something completely different. It's still a bit strange to me to consider that police here don't carry guns. But, police here "pull out their batons". It's interesting. And somehow more violent. The pictures in the paper have been very disturbing.

(Unrelated to that, yes, there are mostly naked women in some of the papers, but I can never remember which ones.)

I don't really know what is going on. There was a lot of tension in the air on Monday, but today was okay, nice and quiet. (I was out a lot today.) I understand there are plans for more protests soon, but I don't know what they are.

Anna stopped here at 9:46 PM

7/4/2005

So, about two hours after my last entry about how everything was all quiet, my manager was sporting a black eye and a back bruised so badly he had to take pain killers just to function for the rest of the night.

However, to paraphrase a friend, I can't elaborate for actual legal reasons.

But I will say that it had nothing to do with all the marching around here.
I slept through the rioting today, but some of the girls at the hostel work not too far from it, and told me it was chaos. The police weren't letting anyone leave without getting their particulars (so a friend jumped the fence around the Princes Street Garden), and at least one building was in total lock down during the workday. I still am not sure what was going on, but I will say it was something to do with anarchists. (Dear Kris, thinking of you, hugs and kisses, Anna.)

And, unrelated to that, I may have found a flat.

This is not the good news it looks like on paper.

See, there are two ways of getting a flat in Edinburgh, and both require jumping through many very high hoops.

Way One means getting letters of reference from:
- your current employer
- your bank
- your former landlord
- a character reference

For everyone living with you.

In order to get a bank account, I need:
- proof of living in Edinburgh, which means a bill for power or a flat contract in my name.

I'm assuming you see the problem there.

Way Two involves paying six months rent up front. Which is about 4000 £ or 8000 $CDN. Let me just look in my wallet here....

Looks like hostel living for at least the next little while. But work pays weekly, and it is enough for rent on a flat, or getting a flat share, or even just staying in the hostel for the summer. There are options, I'm just not liking them as much as the lovely flat on the Leithe Shore that I fell in love with. (C'mon, it's a renovated whisky storehouse! It should come with a free bottle of whisky every month!)

Anna stopped here at 12:06 PM

 mind the gap

A 20-something Canadian who used to teach English in China. There's lots in the archives about my experiences with teaching, with culture shock, and with my adventures in China. Occasionally it meanders into melancholy (part of the culture shock), which must be very dull to read, so you can skip that.

But right now, I'm back in Canada, and kinda determined to do something with the several thousand photos I took, as well as write more about China and other stuff.

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