While waiting a bus

You would think that it would be hard to start thinking about transportation for hobby. I mean, there are like 6 billion people here, and nobody really has a small talk subject ready for transportation the same way they do about weather. When people talk about transportation, they are not really engaged to small talk, but preferably they are trying to find a scapegoat for why their project is late, sometimes the project being the individuals themselves who are late for meetings, work, children, or something similar, which they try to avoid anyways. Luckily I had time to think about this little intro while I was waiting for a bus for 45 minutes.

Dublin bus just raised their ticket fares a few months ago.  Reasoning behind it was, that people would start using more buses, which is good for environment. Hmmm. There is something I would like to point out, but it seems they are right. Education and health is only appreciated if you want to pay money for it. Look at all those pharmaceutical companies which are getting billions of euros, just for promoting health. So if they would double their fares people wouldn't be using anything that buses.

I think people use buses when they are on time and are helpful for people trying to move themselves from a location A to a location B. Those yellow things seem to achieve that goal sufficiently, and local people here know that those timetables that are shown on bus stops are really for movies. Because, wouldn't you, if you were a movie producer or a director making a movie in Dublin, want to have a bus stop for the scene involving a timetable? That's apparently the sole reason for those markers. It's also easier to find a bus stop.

Going in and out of buses is fairly an easy process. When going in you throw some money in a box and tell the driver how much there is in the box, and the driver prints you an ticket stating that amount. Someone, more intelligent and creative than I am, might find a way to abuse this. I'm just trying to have correct amount of small change readily available at all times. I'm very good at it. I never have large amounts of change.

Airports

Airports. Airports never change. Nobody knows who built the first one, but we know they exist.

Lennart Meri Airport, named after the former president of Estonia, is a small airport with just one runway. Nevertheless, while I was there, waiting for my flight to Dublin, I discovered that while Saku, Estonian brewery, has had a few Estonian sounding brands, but it also has had a few brands of beer which are not assosiated with Estonia very often. 

Brands like A Le Coq (sounds french to me) and Dublin (creamy dark beer, which is for me like Saku Tüme with some creaminess - but does get the meeting with the floor when against Beamish or Guinness) remind me of other places excluding  France and Ireland for reasons of being diplomatic. It could be that Estonian history hasn't had those remarkable events that curve history, so that they could sell beer on their own. Unless somebody wants to google Saku Karl Friedrich.

Or perhaps it's the Estonian way of saying that they are a part of Europe, more or the less than Russia. As far as I know, there hasn't been beers called The Stalin or The Iron Curtain either. Perhaps Saku, or some other brewery, could start a new beer brand called Lennart Meri. Hopefully it will give some justice to the name.

As cheap as it gets - in OSLO

I'm an immigrant and I know people basically think that us foreigners are taking YOUR jobs and taking your YOUR apartments, and so on, etc.

As I see it, Dublin is actually pretty cheap place to live. If you want to understand how it feels for me to move to a developing country like Ireland, let's see how norwegian people feel about finnish people. My first encounter with an actual Norwegian was when I was about 19-20 years old and we met in a centerpub where it cost like 25 marks (inflation not included - 6 euros) per a 0,5 litres of beer and he paid for me and my ladyfriend the whole night. His idea was that it was cheap in Helsinki, when in Oslo it cost about 100 marks (inflation still not included - 16 euroes) to get a beer in a restaurant.

So I try to understand, when moving to south, from my point of view, I am moving to a developing country. And Ireland is probably getting Spotify in there too.

Would you like to walk on The Ernest Walton Bridge?

Siliconrepublic.com reports of a movement led by The Institute of Physics (IOP) in Ireland aiming to have Dublin's City Council to name the planned Marlborough street bridge spanning over the River Liffey as "The Ernest Walton Bridge" after the nobel-prize winner.
 
I think it's a great idea for a city of such a long history to brand new projects with a sense of pride in history. In Helsinki, a city where I have lived more than a half of my life, the main street is named Mannerheimintie after the president and a military leader who fought on the side of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War. Although Mannerheim's greatness is a matter of debate in Finland even after 90 years since the Civil War, Walton himself doesn't have a cloudy past which could be a burden to a new bridge, unless you want to blame him for discoveries that lead to Manhattan Project.


You can sign the petition at the surveymonkey.

Few reasons not to leave Dublin - or come to Dublin

Totally Dublin (TD) produced 200 reasons for not leaving Dublin. It's mostly written for somebody whose family line might be located close to Dublin for generations (at least one).  The list is not in any fashioned form emphasizing better reasons upon worse.

So here is a short list of reasons put into different categories.

Respect your shoe polisher
The use of chemical substances or the otherwise lacking respect for things considered gratious are treated differently in Dublin than let's say in Buckingham palace.

• "If the Lady Liberty was here, it’d be called The Clown In The Crown."
• Alcoholism. "There’s actually serious social stigma attached to that in other countries"
• Referring to politicians by their first name. Michael D. Higgins is Michael D. 
• Cheeky kids. If a kid tells you, he likes your hair, he thinks your hair looks stupid and you're an idiot. "The city’s children are amongst the world’s most sarcastic." Author of this blog is just being diplomatic.

It's just like everywhere else, but better
It's not like people invented potatoes in Ireland, but they are better here than anywhere else. If you're unsure where potatoes came from, then please visit google maps. It's that big island few thousand miles west of Ireland.

• Burritos are "everywhere, but they’re probably full of fancy stuff and complications. Stick to Boojum, Pablo Picante and Burritos & Blues."
• Vikings. They needed parking space for their boats before going on rampage stealing gold and burning monastries. "That’s way cooler than pilgrims", reasons TD.
• Salted butter. "The disappointing, colourless slop that passes for butter in every other country in the world is a disgrace to bread."
• Low risk of invasion. Basically it's like Switzerland except on an island.
• Pubs that are institutions. "-- each better than any pub in any other country. Science fact." A bit like Tavastia or Juttutupa in Helsinki.
• Poker. Different game and you have to be sober. Otherwise it's the same game.

Actually worth mentioning
This category is probably the most important, if you're really into the distinctive nature of Dublin, otherwise it's just some concepts people are copying around the world.

• Pints of Guinness. I won't copypaste TD's review. I'll just point out that there's a difference.