Chatting and Driving

I went to Jerusalem Sunday morning in a taxi van. The driver spent most of the one-hour trip talking on a little radio while we were travelling at 120kph. The interesting thing was that he was holding the radio in one hand, and was using the other hand to join in the conversation as if the other guy was standing right in front of him. Of course, this meant no hands on the wheel!

Often when men are talking here, they talk very loudly and expressively and if you didn't know, you'd think they were angry at each other. And they're not shy to tell other people what to do: On the bus this morning, one man blocked the aisle a little and a nearby passenger told him off. And then there was a car a bit over the lane at the traffic lights and the taxi driver tooted at her until she moved (yes, it was a woman driver of course ;) and then drove up beside her and proceeded to tell her off through the window.

The taxi driver didn't speak much English so my little Hebrew helped. Not speaking it -- it's not worth speaking it to strangers because they just answer you really fast in Hebrew and then you're totally bamboozled. But being understand many of the common words is very helpful to be able to guess what he's saying, e.g., when the taxi driver said how much the fare was before we left, and then when we arrived at the final stop he said it was the end of the trip.

Of course, it's hard the first time you do anything because you don't know how the system works. But hopefully after a few weeks here, I should get the hang of a few things at least.