Hi everyone,
One nice thing that I really like about living in Bratislava is the profusion of public transport options available. I was living in Frederick, Md for the last year or so and I think that wasn't a bad spot for public transport options. That said, the system here is much more befitting a capital city and it makes my non-driving life here a lot easier.
Basically speaking, the day to day public transport is covered by three options: the electric trams, the electric trolley buses and the regular buses.
The ticketing system here is different to what I'm used to. You have to buy a ticket (or tickets) from a vending machine available at most bus stops before you get on the bus. Luckily I didn't get caught when I first got here and rode the bus while looking for the ticket machine aboard as being ticketless carries a 50 euro fine. Once you have your ticket you must get it punched by the little machines aboard, which mark the time.
The time is the key thing here since these tickets are not sold with a fixed destination, but rather a duration of validity. For 70c you get a 15 minute ticket and you can ride any bus on any route as long as the journey is completed within the time limit. The next step up is the 90c ticket for 60 minutes on the bus and you can chop and change buses if you need to within the time limit. It's a very nice system and much more to my liking than the tickets where you have to buy for a specific location, especially if you find out that it's not the exact place you need to be.
One bonus of my employer is that I get a bus pass paid for by them while I work there. We teach English in many different places around the city and it's a rare week when you're not jumping on a bus to some place or other. I'm much happier not having to worry about having the right length of bus ticket or missing a bus because I need to buy a ticket before getting on if it arrives when I'm using the ticket vending machine.
Aother thing that is a lot of fun with the buses here is that many of them are of the bendy / accordion type where there is a hinged section in the middle. It helps on the big commuter routes because you nearly double the capacity of the bus and it's actually something of a fun ride to stand in the middle part of the bus when it's cornering....yes I'm still a kid at heart.
Of course, it is not a perfect system here and buses do run late, break down or not even show up at all from time to time. It's not so bad for me now since the weather is nice and my teaching schedule doesn't have me changing locations too much but I'm sure there will be a time or two when I get frustrated and annoyed. Waiting for a bus that's late in the middle of winter will be less fun too I'm sure.
Thanks for reading everyone and look out for more posts soon. I'll be moving towards the teaching side of things as soon as I have time to put my thoughts together and make sure I'm ready for all of my lessons first.
Pete
