Travelling

Today I traveled for over 12 hours.  Mostly driving, stopping a few minutes here and there to get gas, go to the bathroom, or, of course, take pictures.  I am fairly certain that one could traverse the entire length of Israel in that time, without even trying very hard.  In comparison, I traveled through only 3 states out of 50:
Colorado,

Wyoming,

Montana. 

(Please forgive the blurry pictures...they were snapped as I quickly passed by.)

And however far I drove, I had no problem reading the road signs (though they did vary from state to state), or talking to people, or understanding the gas pump instructions.

I've been back in the states for well over two months now, but these sorts of things still strike me:
1. The inexplicable luxury of not having to ask for help with the gas pump (because each one asks you to enter different information and none of them "speak" English).
2. The experience of walking down a sidewalk and realizing that, for a change, you are not walking twice as fast as everyone else on that sidewalk.  Some people are even running and passing you!
3. Still walking down said sidewalk and realizing that you have no problem understanding the conversation of the two women walking their dogs nearby.  In Israel I got used to ignoring people - they were rarely talking to me and I could almost never understand what they said anyway.  Here, it's harder to block out ambient conversations because I can actually understand them.
4. Remembering that I can look men in the eyes here, without fear that they will think me a loose women and make an accordingly inappropriate comment.
5. Friendly exchanges, in a language I understand, with complete strangers.  Again, this could happen in Israel, but it was rarer...probably because most gas station attendants were men and prone to be a little creepy.  (See #4.)
6. The immense distances.  The United States is a diverse country, but Israel has almost all the same types of landscapes, stuffed into a much smaller area.  It still amazes me that I can drive for hours without much change in scenery,
here...

 to here...

 to here...

to here.  

 Changes are noticeable, but not dramatic.

7.  The vast emptiness takes my breath away.  One can drive for hours without seeing more than a town or two, each only a couple thousand people.  The immense distances in between, broken only occasionally by a barn or farmhouse, still amaze me.  I love these wide open spaces.  They made me wish I had time to stop the car and explore.  

These sorts of things do make life and traveling easier and more pleasant.  Still, for all it's problems, I miss Israel.  I listened to a story on the way home about an orthodox Jew in Jerusalem.  The descriptions and place names were so familiar - Mea Shearim, Old City, Jaffa Road, Damascus Gate, Khamsin - I could picture it clearly and longed to be there myself.  

For now, however, God has me here, so I will strive to enjoy English and comprehensible gas pumps and huge wide open spaces and other small pleasures of life in these United States.