Public Transport

Well, I can't really hold this off any longer ;-). I seriousely have to write this after having yet another conversation that confirmed my view.

So, in short public transport in Dublin is desastrous, terrible, ridiculousely expensive and well, I could go on and on about it!

I do not even really know where to start ranting about it ;-). I'll give you a quick overview:

There's the Luas (it's a real modern tram) which has two lines that do NOT connect at any point, one is the Red Line the other the Green one. Then theres the Dublin Buses, which to be honest I haven't figured out yet... (more on why later) there's also the Dart (kind of an S-Bahn) and I think that's it. Now to the issues:

• They are all run by different companies! There's no ticket for all the services, which completely doesn't make sense.
• Each service is absolutely ridiculousely expensive! It's way cheaper in Zurich.
• The bus system is really complicated. The map just shows you where the bus will start in the city center. And then it shows where it's going... So you have no clue which street it goes along, you have no clue where there are stops along that line and it's just sort of impossible to figure anything out about them. And I also heard that they are completely unreliable, so people have been waiting for a bus to show up for more than half an hour (apparently a couple of drivers where having a beer).
• It's jammers during rush hour... The principle truly is the strongest wins! So people shove each other around and stop being nice for a little.

So I guess these are the main points so far ;-).

What I do to make this situation somehow bearable *lol* is the following: I bought a Luas ticket from Rialto to Abbey Street (Red 2 to Central 1) for 30 days. I pay 41 Euro for a reduced student fare... (I had to buy a student travel card for 15 Euro in order to get the student price, weird, but ok). From Abbey Street I just walk down to Trinity... So from home to Trinity it takes me about 30-40 minutes.

So maybe something positive: The Luas is a real nice tram and it's very modern. If you ride on it outside the rush hour then you can actually sit and watch outside or read a book :-).

And just so you know that I'm not being an arrogant foreigner *lol*, many Dubliners themselves don't have a lot of good things to say about their transport system...

If you wanna have a look:
http://www.luas.ie/

So, I'm quite tired actually and I still gotta do my timetable, which is a bit of a challenge to be honest! Next time I might write about Trinity College or I might also write about the different clubs and societies at TCD.