The Middle Path

Walking down the street is a dangerous business here.

Not only do you have to dodge homicidal cars that are driving on the other side of the road (notice I didn't say the wrong side-- I'm getting better), you also have to navigate the sidewalks. They are often more narrow than their American and Canadian equivalents, because Edinburgh wasn't planned to have perfectly measured sidewalks and roads. They are also teeming with tourists-- particularly Princes Street, North/South Bridge, and the Royal Mile.

You can spot a non-British tourist immediately by which side of the sidewalk they gravitate towards. I noticed this when I first got here, and immediately vowed never to walk on the non-British side of the sidewalk again. Interestingly, though, I was still walking into people all the time. Not just tourists, either. After a careful inspection of the natives, to use the British phrase, I think I've sussed it.

Edinburghians (is that what they're called?) have a zen-like-- hell, almost Taoist method for walking down the street. They walk down the middle of the sidewalk, letting tourists stream past on the left, and fellow Brits stream past on the right. If they spot another Scot doing the same thing, each will make a split-second decision, while still about 10 (or 20, if space permits) feet away. This way, you avoid all the awkward shuffling that nearly walking into someone entails, and you never have to make eye contact (which is often really infuriating, but that's another story.)

So, as a now confidant j-walker and sidewalk traipser on the streets of Edinburgh, I have adopted the Middle Path, the Way.

Hopefully, I'll no longer be perceived as an outsider. That's very interesting too: I have such a strong desire to belong. This need to fit in, to be perceived as an unobtrusive part of the whole is incredibly powerful, and almost everyone who moves to a new place feels it. But actually fitting in is an organic, subconscious process, and, at least in my experience, you don't realize you've started to fit in until you meet someone who's even more of an outsider than you to compare yourself with. But what a fascinating human desire!