On public transport

London has spoiled me. I have grown tired of its girth and anonymity, but it is huge and there all always new neighborhoods to explore. After only 24 hours I am feeling the opposite in Jerusalem - there are only so many places to go where you constantly run into the same of people. I am being negative and pessimistic, at a time when my life is full of promise and possibility. I need to get rid of this "grass-is-greener" syndrome, and be open to new things and new opportunities. It's old and familiar, but I am really scared and don't know how to articulate this. I want to make a commitment. I want to be here. I've wanted to do this for a long time now. I don't want to be afraid anymore.

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Public Service Announcement to the people who ride the 3, 16, 59, 133, and 159 buses in central London:

The bus is not your bedroom. Please do not snog quietly in the in the front, make out loudly in the back, or shout across the aisle at each other if your relationship is in trouble. The bus is not you bathroom. Please do not cut your nails leaving the scraps on the floor, pluck hairs from your chin, or spit on the floor after a coughing fit. The bus is not your kitchen. Please do not dump chicken bones and yogurt containers on the floor, or leave your empty beer bottles to roll around, then fall down the stairs. /end of rant

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The ride from the airport was slightly appalling. I couldn't help but think about a friend in Jordan who was born in Lod, but left when he was a child. A number of years ago he got a visa to Israel and came to visit his childhood home. He could see it but was not allowed near it, because his home was now in the "security" area around the airport.
There is not much traffic at 5:30 am. The sherut was moving very fast as the sun came up.
I noticed a chain-link fence along the side of the road. Then some Arab houses with black water tanks on their flat roofs. Lots of men standing by the side of the road, like migrants workers waiting for a construction job, but they were in their OWN country, or at least what was once their country...
Then came a bigger wall with a nice stone decoration near the top. It was almost 'pretty', like the wall being built along the road to Hebron, not like the cement monstrosity around Ramallah or Bethlehem. The wall running near the houses suddenly turns and stops. On the other side? Half a dozen houses with red roofs. With special access roads and overpasses. None of the Arab areas we passed had that.
Around 6am we reached a settlement just north of Beit Iksah where the first passengers were dropped off. The sherut then made its way to the center of the city, to my new apartment, to my new life.