It took 2 hours for me to get to the mall, not because of a poor plan, but because I didn’t get off when I should have. I took the #30 bus until I saw a stop that said 31, then jumped off to wait for the 31. There was no one at the stop, but a lot of people on the other side of the street, so I went over to ask them which side I should wait on to get to the mall. No one understood English and I couldn’t understand what they were saying back. Finely instead of saying mall, I said shopping, one of the lady’s face brightened up and she indicated that I should wait on this side of the street. Shopping was the magic word.
I was on the look out for the mall, I could see it, I thought we would turn to get closer, but we didn’t. The next stop was some distance from the mall, I could get off and double back or stay on the bus and see where it goes. I chose to ride it out. We ended up in town at the bus terminal, this was the last stop, this bus was now going out of service. I was hoping the bus would keep going until it got around to the mall again, but no such luck. I was the only one left on the bus, the driver asked me where I was trying to go, I told him Jerusalem Mall, he said I could catch the #31 across the street.
Now I was on the 31 heading off to the mall, I saw a lot of the city I had never seen before. At the intersection where the bus was supposed to turn to get to the mall, a police man was stopping traffic and making all the cars go straight. The bus driver yelled some words to the police man, but the cop wouldn’t let him turn anyway. All of a sudden there were a lot of excited conversations on the bus, and the driver was mumbling to himself. We drove some distance before we came to another intersection, there was a policeman there too. The bus driver leaned out the window and conversed with the policeman for a while, then the police man walked to the middle of the intersection, blue his whistle, and stopped traffic in all directions. We then made a wide swinging U turn, now, this is a double bus that bends in the middle, I was not sure we could do it, but we did. Finely I was at the mall!! I found my mascara and bought a wonderful pair of shoes. I spent the day roaming in and out of the stores. I was getting tired when I spotted a tall director chair. Ha, ha, just what I needed on the roof when I paint (I’ll tell you why another time), and the last one, marked down, less than half the original price. Perfect! I bought it, the man in the store folded it down as small as it would go and tied it up for me. Now, should I take a taxi, or try to carry this chair and all my packages on the bus? Oh, take the bus, what the heck!!
I successfully got from the 31 to the 30 and was on my way home. It was late in the afternoon and traffic was heavy. As we came to a stop light, the bus driver opened the door and started yelling and swinging his arms at the man in the car next to us. The man got out of his car, got on the bus, and the two of them were having a very loud and heated conversation. An older woman in the front seat got into the argument too, I couldn’t tell whose side she was on. Finely, the man got off the bus, the driver closed the door, while still yelling at the man, and we continued on.
Almost home, very tired, but almost home. The walk from the bus stop home is a block, the chair was folded up enough that I could get it into the elevator, and I could collapse on the couch and have something to drink, before starting dinner. Don was asleep on the couch, so I didn’t need to start dinner for a while, dinner would be easy, warmed up leftovers.
Well that’s my bus adventure..................
Shalom...........Bernice