Brunch this morning was a mozzarella-tomato-olive oil sandwich at Aroma in the Jerusalem central bus station, where I met a friend. That and their lox sandwich used to be my favorites. They also have wifi - definitely new since my last visit - and a flat HDTV on the wall that was playing music videos, not the same as the music playing on the speakers. The black and white photographs on the back wall have always been there. On the floor above that is a bakery I used to frequent on the way to and from buses; I got one of everything sweet, eating a cream-filled pastry and saving the rest for later. On the floor above that is Cafe Net, which used to be my favorite shop in the station, before wifi. From there to Ben Yehuda again, to look for books, but they're very expensive for some reason ($30+ for new, domestically published paperbacks), so I didn't get all the ones I wanted. I did get a little cookbook with a recipe for falafel, however, and a bilingual collection of Yehuda Amichai poems. Someone recommended Amos Oz's new book, A Tale of Love and Darkness, but I'll just get it from the library.
Then a slice of pizza at the timeless Big Apple Pizza, and finally a mocha at the Coffee Bean, a cafe on Jaffa St with its own wifi, where I sit now. A few tables away, a man stands next to his laptop and coffee saying the afternoon prayers.

(Back at home, I see that Obama is leading in the Iowa caucuses, with Clinton in 3rd. It's all about the momentum...)