Snow... lots and lots of it

So I wanted to write about the snow since it started and I am finally getting aroudn to doing this :-).

For a start... Ireland and Snow just does NOT match at all! The Irish have no clue what to do with snow and there's absolutely no way of dealing with it... with enough snow, everything would just break down completely.

So where to start with this long and painful, hopefully amusing story about snow??? I guess I'll just sort of highlight some of the funny stories that happened, because I honestly can't remember everything anymore...

The first snow fell, I think, on Sunday the 28th of November or maybe it was Saturday, who knows. It was cute at first, not a lot, but during the night it just kept snowing and so the snow stayed. The Irish were completely taken aback, I mean, it does NEVER snow here in late November, NEVER :-). And so why get rid of the snow if it anyway never snows and it'll be over soon and there won't be any more of it.. Yeah right. So the snow kept on falling and falling, there were thunderstorms (yes, really), maybe even the occasional blizzard... The weather had gone completely nuts and the Irish were still too much in shock to do anything about it...

But hmm... what should they have done about it? Apparently Ireland doesn't own any snow plows and people with houses don't have snow shovels and you get it... they just had no clue how to deal with the snow. Luckily I lived on the Luas line and got to town and back faily easy, the walking was just a bit of a dangerous task, as the snow became ice.

So on Tuesday finally Johann and Jan arrived :-) Due to the snow there were many delays at Dublin Airport and it was occasionally even closed I think. The poor guys arrived into a city full of slush and snow and ice and there was no stopping it... The snow kept falling, harder than ever. Bus service broke down at certain times, Siofra's school closed because teacher living in the country couldn't get into Dublin anymore and so on. Trinity's open day on Wednesday got cancelled as it was too dangerous... a threat to the health of the visitors. I tell you... snow and slush on "polished" cobblestones is bloody dangerous.

On Thursday College was closed to all but students, staff and residents... It remained closed until Monday morning!!!


At this point (still Thursday) I still wasn't able to observe a lot of effort with regard to getting rid of the snow... And still more was falling from the sky... The funny thing... All the Irish kept saying it's a once off thing, it'll not happen again, there's no need to get winter tires for the car, no need for the city to get snow plows,... Well, I guess we'll see about that next year.

On Thursday the situation got completely out of control... At first the green Luas line stopped running because some stupid kids has apparently built a snowman on the tracks... and the police didn't seem to do anything about it, guess they were busy. Later on also the Red Luas line stopped running, there was SO much snow! So yeah, I walked a bit along the Luas tracks, only 2 stops, with a lot of other people... Some of them had to go MUCH further, basically a 1.5 hour walk with normal conditions. And while walking around in Dundrum I saw a Dublin SNOWPLOW!!! Yes honestly, there is at least 1 - probably only 1 ;-) - snowplow!!!

So after that at least the Luas kept running and because it got a bit warmer the streets weren't covered in ice during the day... But you imagine, as soon as the sun went down the slush and water turned to ice... Ice-skating with normal shoes on the Rialto Roundabout at midnight is fun :-).

At this point, I guess it was Monday last week, an effort was being made by staff to clear the college pathways... The methods implemented to get rid of the about 15cm - 20cm thick ice and snow were quite funny...

So... now all the snow has pretty much melted and the city is back to normal :-).

Only 7 more days until I am back in Switzerland :-)...