The Bus Community

I live in Bilbao. Greater Bilbao (Bilbao and the many suburbs surrounding it) has a population of about 500 000. It's pretty small for a city. I've lived in smaller, and I've lived in bigger. To get some perspective, I was sitting on the bus this morning comparing the population of Bilbao to the populations of the other places I've lived. Bilbao has (according to my memories of the populations of these places and some sketchy mental arithmetic):
almost 10 times as many people as Bermuda,
1/18 the population of Istanbul,
about twice as many people as Barbados,
half as many as Trinidad,
1/6 as many people as Montreal, and
2 and a half times as many people as Haifa.

As far as cities go, it's beautiful. As I showed Serene around last week we were talking about this. It is big enough to have everything you need, and is small enough that you know where to find it.

So generally in a city this size, taking public transportation you would find a random assortment of people every time. Well that's what I thought. But I don't live downtown. I live in a small residential area called Artxanda, known for its hilltop location overlooking the city, and with the beautiful views the restaurants where many couples go to get married. When one says "Artxanda" though, it's not the views or the restaurants that come to mind. I've come to realise that "Artxanda" is synonymous with "lover's lane" in Bilbao. From sunset, the road leading up to Artxanda is lined with parked cars. If the people in the cars were to look out of their steamed-up windows, they would have a beautiful view of a city surriounded by mountains, with a river running around the edge, the buildings lining it, a mixture of old and new.... but they're otherwse occupied.

Artxanda has very few residents. Probably less than a couple of hundred, I don't know really. It's more of a neighbourhood than a town or suburb. There is one bus between Artxanda and Bilbao. It runs a circular route, once an hour. I've never seen it full, and I've gotten used to seeing certain people getting on. I know the regulars, where and when they get on and off.... Obviously, so does the bus driver. Today we had a driver who I haven't seen in a couple of weeks. I guess he was either sick or on vacation. Either way, there was a regular who got on a few stops after me, and she was happy to see him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. How cute!

There's a lady who comes on the 2 o'clock bus with her daughter who has Down's Syndrome. The daughter talks to everyone on the bus and always has something to laugh about. She never wants to get off when it's time, and usually another passenger has to come to the mother's aid to gently push and slide the daughter from behind while the mother pulls her by the hands out towards the door and out of the bus.

There's a lady who comes on the bus in the morning and the afternoon. She seems to have problems with her neighbours, and the bus seems to be the only place she feels comfortable shouting at them and venting her problems. When she gets on, I usually make sure I have my walkman on and headphones in place.

There's a guy who catches the bus in the evenings. He looks Arab. I want to say hello to him in Arabic and talk to him a bit, but I always lose my nerve.

A girl who lives next door catches the 9 o'clock bus most evenings. She never talks to anyone. Yesterday, she nodded slightly and acknowledged my presence for the first time. I feel like I'm making progress.

David, the neighbour from 2 doors down, and a friend of Neisan's who I helped with preparing for his English exam comes on the bus periodically. We usually chat for the whole trip home.

There are various old people (there's an old-folks' home opposite our place) and young people (mostly students at the culinary academy near the end of the route). Not many people in between, I suppose they all have cars....