What a night!

Living in Hackney didn't seem so bad as people said it would be until last night. Before arriving in London, several people told me Hackney is one of the most dangerous places in London along with Brixton, Peckham, etc. Hackney is an inner-city borough and it's got a bad reputation. There are lots of Vietnamese stores and Turkish restaurants and sometimes I don't hear English spoken on the streets. The place doesn't look so bad, I must say. Granted, it's not Beverly Hills, but it doesn't have that ghetto look like the Bronx in NY or La Victoria in Lima. Here are some pictures of Hackney.

I met with my friend Colin in West End for a beer and then I had to meet another friend in the east part of London at 11pm. Speaking of beer, you should try Strongbow if you haven't. It's got cider and it's sweet. After two pints of Strongbow, I needed to sober up a little before meeting my other friend. A can of coke, a walk down the street plus a long ride on the subway did the trick. My friend and I were smoking Shisha when suddenly the police came into the place and asked everyone to leave. The place we were in was not supposed to be open after 11pm and they were not supposed to have people smoke upstairs because, according to the police, it was not dafe to smoke there (like, there were no emergency or fire exits and the ceiling was decorated with Indian fabric which could easily get on fire).

By now it was 12:30am and I took the bus back home. There were quite some people on the bus when these teenagers got on it and started being really loud. Then a different teenager got on the bus with some kind of fireworks in his hand, which he lit up and threw at the other teenagers. The fireworks, of course, went off inside the bus, which scared everyone to death. The smoke made everyone open the windows but then most people decided to leave the bus even though those punks were still playing with fireworks outside. For some reason, the doors would not close and so the bus would not move. I was too scared to step off the bus and wait for another bus outside, so me and 2 other guys just stayed inside the bus until the next bus came along. If that wasn't enough adrenaline for the night, when I got off the bus, some drunken white dude was walking along the streets kicking the walls and the wastebaskets and looking for a fight. You could just see the dude was thirsty for blood. Thankfully he just walked past me. Scary!

Getting kicked out of a Shisha bar by the police, surviving fireworks going off on a double-decker bus and dealing with white drunken violent guys. And I thought my neighborhood was safe. What a rough awakening! Welcome to Hackney!