Testing my luck

I drove in Jerusalem for the first time yesterday, and it went very well. My mistake was trying it again today.

When my roommate first mentioned buying a car, the idea of driving here terrified me. This is a city of impossibly narrow streets, aggressive drivers, and often hostile police. But no one else seemed to share my worry.

"Driving here is no problem. Just ignore the honking, and when in doubt, just go. Otherwise you'll never get anywhere," my neighbor told me. But, as it turned out, my roommate's car arrived when she was out of town and I was the only one available to pick it up. My heart was pounding when I sat down in the driver's seat, and there was an awkward moment when I couldn't get the stick shift to go in reverse. But, then I was moving! I didn't have to rely on taxi drivers who charged too much or endure the glares of people on the bus. I could go anywhere! Of course, the first place I went was the wrong way down the highway, but a quick u-turn and I was headed home. Yes, the traffic laws were strange, and the cars around me didn't seem to understand what lanes were, but I seemed to be able to adapt to it intuitively. I made it to the store and bought a lot of bulky items I never could have taken on the bus, and returned home in triumph.


It went so well, that I decided to try again today, forgetting that on Friday mornings the roads are packed with people preparing for Shabbat. Driving today was surreal. I regularly saw scenes like the one above, shot by Melissa Yeo. An older man driving some kind of golf cart at 2 miles an hour decided to take up an entire lane of a very busy street. I couldn't get around him, so I just had to follow him. I saw a giant two-section bus suddenly do a k-turn in the middle of a residential street. I parked the car, and then realized that the street was so narrow that to back out, I would have to block both lanes of traffic. I couldn't wait until the street was clear because the street was never clear. I watched the woman next to me back out calmly into oncoming traffic. Everyone just moved out of her way. I took a deep breath, and then did the same thing. Miraculously, it worked. I made it home with both the car and I undamaged. But, it will be a while before I get back behind the wheel. Buses and taxis are looking much friendlier now.