It is thundering outside and I am in my macroeconomics class, which runs until 9pm (as opposed to the bus I need to take home which stop running at about 8:35). This wouldn’t worry me so much if it weren’t for the fact that I left my umbrella at home! I happen to have my computer (obviously), my iphone, my new ipod nano, and over $200 in text books that I finally got the money to buy today. The only thing worse than walking a few km in the rain is walking with about 3k worth of products that can be destroyed by water. This brings up two topics about Sydney which I would like to have a brief discussion about (not really a discussion, more like a one sided rant, unless you decide to comment). Bus schedules and weather.
My feet stink. Yes, this is relevant. There are 3 main contributing factors. The first is, I can’t afford new shoes right now so I wear my 5 year old flip flops everywhere. They aren’t particularly nice, just surprisingly durable. Eventually my heal will pop through the bottom, and on that day I will either find some new shoes or epoxy something to the bottom of them. The second reason ties somewhat into the first. Over these last few years I’ve probably put more miles on these flip flops than most have put on their cars. I walk EVERYWHERE (and have the blisters and tan lines to prove it). I would estimate that I walk roughly an average of 14km (9ish miles) per day. The third is that I haven’t washed them. I usually rely on rain to clean them, but I haven’t seen much of that recently.
To summarize, due to monetary restrictions I have very old footwear. I walk constantly which makes them dirty. I haven’t had a chance to wash them or walk around in the rain, so they are getting a bit funky. To summarize the summary, I have (1) Old flip-flops that are (2) worn all the time and (3) never washed. To summarize the summary of the summary, my feet stink.
Enough about my feet. I don’t particularly enjoy walking this much, but I live far from school and the only other way for me to get there is by bus. Lets explore the possibility of bus travel.
The busses in Sydney are very nice! They are almost always clean and many even have air conditioning. The drivers are usually friendly and will help you get to where you are going. I’ve found that I am rather fond of travelling via bus.
Here are the problems that exist with Sydney busses. Fare is decided by how many “zones” you travel while on the bus. Zones are decided by the distance you travel, not the number of stops or the final destination. These zones are needlessly confusing and make figuring out how much your trip will cost damn near impossible without asking the driver. For me this is not a problem because I would be travelling the same route every day, but it is annoying enough that I thought I should mention it.
The other problem (the one keeping me from riding the bus) is that they have detailed schedules posted at every stop. These show when the bus will get there and on what day. The problem is that this schedule is generally disregarded and the busses seem to travel at their own free will. It is very common for a bus to not show up, then two of the same busses to show up at some random time a bit later.
What this means is that I have to get to the bus stop unacceptably early in order to ensure that I will arrive in time for my class. For a real life example, I’ve taken the same bus at the same time on the same day leaving from the same stop and have arrived at class anywhere between 30 minute early to 15 minutes late (note: this bus was scheduled to run on a 20 minute intervals).
This is especially annoying when trying to get to my transportation management classes (about a 3.5km walk).
As a result, unless I can actually see the bus approaching the stop while walking to it I generally will not trust it to show up and will walk to where I am going instead. This is good for my budget and makes me feel nice and green inside, but bad for my feet.
The only time I decisively take the bus is when the weather is crappy, but it is almost impossible to predict the weather in Sydney. In the US we get hour by hour weather predictions which are sometimes off, but surprisingly accurate. Here is a typical weather forecast for Sydney:
Friday Fine.
City: Min: 18 Max: 23
West: Min: 13 Max: 27
What do they mean by Friday - Fine? Fine, you can figure out the weather yourself? The weather will be small in regards to thickness? Friday will be characterized by elegance, refinement and accomplishment? Friday will be a penalty or punishment for something we’ve done? Will the day be smooth to the touch? I find this vagueness absolutely hilarious, but most people just think I’m crazy when I see or hear the forecast in public and start laughing hysterically.
I believe the reason for this odd weather forecast is because nobody can actually predict the weather. The way it works here, it could be absolutely beautiful one minute, then storming like crazy the next, then sunny the next, then sunny and raining a minute later, then cloudy with lightning, then raining and sunny, then cloudy and storming, then back to absolutely beautiful. My iphone said it would be a nice night tonight, and all I hear is thunder!
So far I’ve found only one sure-fire way to predict rain:
If I bring my umbrella, it will not rain. Even if the forecast calls for severe storms all day. If I do not bring my umbrella, nature is open to display it’s own interpretation of what it thinks the climate should be like at that particular moment.
I suppose it is a bit arrogant to think that I singlehandedly control the rainfall for an entire city, but so far I’ve found this infinitely more accurate than anything any meteorologists can predicted. Take that, science!
