I will say that I have been on this route for months and see different things each time. I had once believed that you only need a few days to get to know a city. But you really need much longer to notice the small things about everyday life.
Large purple trash containers are sprinkled throughout neighborhoods. They usually have starving cats foraging within. The street cleaners also wear purple.
On many days I pass Bin Laden Hospital. Somehow the name Ossama Bin Laden is like Adolf Hitler. But both Ossama and Bin Laden are common names.
If you’re an adult male you drive. So to see a man on a bike, (one that’s too small for him), is unusual. And moreover it’s too damn hot to ride around in that outfit. Obviously his other transportation is a Porsche.
Jeddah Boys VIP, I love it no matter what it is that is private and VIP – porno?
Museum shop – by now I know I will not find anything special. Don’t they have proofreaders at the sign shop for ‘Pitctrs?’
Street produce, there’s a subculture of vendors who come out with fruits and try to sell from pushcarts. They are illegal so they run if they see a police car. Like what will the police do? Eat all the fruit?
Just less than a block from the hospital is this large empty lot surrounded by walls, seemingly guarded, and always with comings and goings. Now that I have asked, it has been explained that this is a cemetery. And now I can see that there are flat headstone markers.
Here’s another big empty lot. I note it because in one paranoid moment there was a guy following me on the street one evening. There’s never anyone walking when I walk and never anyone walking where I walk. I’m from NY and street wary, carrying a camera and of course paranoid. There’s a matter of personal space.
So it was a surprise when the guy slipped in behind me, opened a gate into a very large empty lot, and turned on the lights to a shack behind the wall. ‘Nuff said.
When you live in a dessert city with millions of cars and it never rains, you may wonder about the dust. What I wonder about is the fact that I see no car wash places. Instead I see people standing with bucket of water ready and willing to wash your expensive car. How do they keep from scratching the finish?
ImagedEvent 