So, uhm, I witnessed a man beating another man with an ashtray yesterday.
The story goes like this: it's Monday evening, 7:00 p.m.. I've just finished teaching my volunteer English classes at this cultural program place in the city center and I want to hang out for a while longer downtown before I go home. So I call Caroline and we go to Cafe Alex (family: this is that cafe right next to Vapiano, where we ate when you visited). It's this cute outside cafe - lots of wicker tables and chairs, overpriced teas, some old man duo playing an oboe and an accordion in the background - and everything is peaceful.
I'm just about to take my first sip of tea when two big guys come barreling around the corner, one chasing the other and both of them yelling in German. It's just some guys being rowdy, I think to myself, but then the chaser (let's call him Polo Shirt Guy) tackles the chasee (let's call him Long Shirt Guy) right in front of my table.
I don't mean playfully tackles. I mean, Polo Shirt Guy was on the hunt, and he took Long Shirt Guy down hard. They landed so close to our table that, if Caroline and I hadn't jumped up right away, they would've landed on us. As it was, out table was knocked over and our drinks went everywhere (before I even got to drink mine, shame shame ...).
But that's not the half of it. Polo Shirt Guy starts beating Long Shirt Guy right in front of us. He wailed on his face, got up, kicked his head a few times, hit him with an ashtray (!) ... all of this within what seemed like hours of the tackle but was actually probably just seconds. Long Shirt Guy had no chance to fight back.
I jumped up (well, I had already jumped up and away when my table got knocked over) and was thinking, "Somebody get that guy off of him!" So, I start yelling at Polo to lay off. In my infinite wisdom I made a move to go towards them -- what was I gonna do? Join the fight? I don't know what the flaming potatoes I, a 5'6" little woman, was going to do to Polo, a 6'5" muscle man, but apparently my dumb butt thought I was going to do something. Nobody else was. So I'm going towards this guy and Caroline's like, "What the HELL are you doing?! You're going to get yourself beat up." I either came to my senses or chickened out, depending on how you look at it, because I didn't jump into the fight. But it didn't matter anyway, because Polo Shirt ran off just then and shortly thereafter the police and ambulance came. Long Shirt Guy's head had bled all over his poor white shirt and the pavement and he needed some patching up. And that was that. As far as I know they didn't catch Polo and nobody chased him when he ran off.
So, anyway. That's my story. If I was a man I'da totally jumped in there and pulled Polo off of Long Shirt. But, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I was a girl that day and so my ass was not on the line. Voila.
The story goes like this: it's Monday evening, 7:00 p.m.. I've just finished teaching my volunteer English classes at this cultural program place in the city center and I want to hang out for a while longer downtown before I go home. So I call Caroline and we go to Cafe Alex (family: this is that cafe right next to Vapiano, where we ate when you visited). It's this cute outside cafe - lots of wicker tables and chairs, overpriced teas, some old man duo playing an oboe and an accordion in the background - and everything is peaceful.
I'm just about to take my first sip of tea when two big guys come barreling around the corner, one chasing the other and both of them yelling in German. It's just some guys being rowdy, I think to myself, but then the chaser (let's call him Polo Shirt Guy) tackles the chasee (let's call him Long Shirt Guy) right in front of my table.
I don't mean playfully tackles. I mean, Polo Shirt Guy was on the hunt, and he took Long Shirt Guy down hard. They landed so close to our table that, if Caroline and I hadn't jumped up right away, they would've landed on us. As it was, out table was knocked over and our drinks went everywhere (before I even got to drink mine, shame shame ...).
But that's not the half of it. Polo Shirt Guy starts beating Long Shirt Guy right in front of us. He wailed on his face, got up, kicked his head a few times, hit him with an ashtray (!) ... all of this within what seemed like hours of the tackle but was actually probably just seconds. Long Shirt Guy had no chance to fight back.
I jumped up (well, I had already jumped up and away when my table got knocked over) and was thinking, "Somebody get that guy off of him!" So, I start yelling at Polo to lay off. In my infinite wisdom I made a move to go towards them -- what was I gonna do? Join the fight? I don't know what the flaming potatoes I, a 5'6" little woman, was going to do to Polo, a 6'5" muscle man, but apparently my dumb butt thought I was going to do something. Nobody else was. So I'm going towards this guy and Caroline's like, "What the HELL are you doing?! You're going to get yourself beat up." I either came to my senses or chickened out, depending on how you look at it, because I didn't jump into the fight. But it didn't matter anyway, because Polo Shirt ran off just then and shortly thereafter the police and ambulance came. Long Shirt Guy's head had bled all over his poor white shirt and the pavement and he needed some patching up. And that was that. As far as I know they didn't catch Polo and nobody chased him when he ran off.
So, anyway. That's my story. If I was a man I'da totally jumped in there and pulled Polo off of Long Shirt. But, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I was a girl that day and so my ass was not on the line. Voila.
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