First Monday
The outside noise and light wake me up at around seven in the morning. When I go out to buy some breakfast, there is only one shop open. The street does not look the same without its shops. On the square next to the wall gate there are more cars than I remember that were yesterday. There is a little man with a trolley, selling bread.
Jerusalem tourist
Palestine. Arrival
It was around 5 in the morning when l arrived at Tel Aviv airport. I had a small scary moment thinking that they had lost my suitcase, because it so happens that, although they announce that the suitcases of the flight from London should be found on tape 7, it only applies if that flight is of the Israeli company, but they won’t say this.
Critical Mass
A “critical mass” has been happening every month in London for more than eleven years. A critical mass is a demonstration/march on bicycles, along the streets in central London, all together as a mass, in such a way that the traffic needs to accommodate to the bikes’ speed.
The police has never known too well how to stop them from happening, and for various years they chose to tolerate them while policing them. In the last years, various officers would accompany the mass on bikes too.
Palestine plans
The plans to go to Holy Land are taking shape. I do not have a ticket yet, but at least I have decided roughly when I will depart and when to come back. I will be there while I wait for my dream job, which in theory I have already got, but various circumstances have come in the way of my future employers, apparently. In the meantime, I will have to live on the debts I am gracefully acquiring at the moment. It might be a good idea to open an account to ask for donations in various places. Might do.
I am very happy that I can go to Palestine. I do not know why Christians tend to go on a pilgrimage to Rome rather than Jerusalem, Bethlehem or Nazareth. In any case, I choose to get out of Europe, on this occasion.
Palestine Information
A. tells me that he is travelling to Palestine in a few weeks. He was there a few months ago, and on that occasion I asked him to tell me with a bit more notice the next time he decided to go. And here he is, telling me with enough notice that he is going again for a few months.
So I think I should take this chance to go not entirely on my own.
Queen
The camera was focused on the centre of the room, where the girls were. The adults were looking at the scene, enchanted. The older girl with her little pink dress, doing her pranks. The small just one little baby, she looked at her sister with admiration and probably with envy, because in a moment when the older one prepared to jump on to the stool, there jumped the small one, stealing the limelight without trying.
Freecycle
I have got a new bed, thanks to freecycle (http://freecycle.org). It is brilliant. It is a mailing list where people basically announce what they want, or want to give out, and whoever who might be interested, writes an e-mail to get it. Depending on what they offer, the announcer will receive a lot of emails. The one who is offering decides to whom he gives. The one receiving has to provide the transport.
Thanks to this I have a decent bed instead of a futon taken from the skip on two pallets also taken from the skip. What a luxury.
Keys
I have needed to make a copy of the most important key of my house, the one we only lock when there is no one left. The first problem comes when no one knows exactly who has the original key. And it goes on when you get to the key cut shop. The one making the copies tells you that the model she’s going to use is the last one she has of it – so you are very lucky indeed today – because it is a very old model that is no longer manufactured.
Route 73, Route 38. [end of the open buses]
At the beginning of my stay in London, I mostly used bus number 73. Bikes were not allowed in the place where I lived, and I didn’t have enough money to use the tube, so walking and taking buses for very long distances were the available options.
Anticipation
I am going to Palestine soon. Plans are taking shape faster and faster, although to be truthful, what is taking the most defined shape is this kind of goodbye, more than anticipation. It is estrange, it is like imagining the functioning of many things in your absence, and preparing everything to make sure that this machinery will go on like this, functioning.
