h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Lady Scott, I thought it was about time I came along and said hello considering I've seen you in so many forums before

So hello

Hi, how are you?

I'm grand, really happy, if a little stressed, I've got exams in about 3 weeks, an interview a week today and the thouht sof leaving high school forever as of the 22nd of May and just little things. But I'm happy and very excited

Hows you?

Doing ok...

Stress? I'm teaching Shorty how to drive...

Must go out soon to do some errands...

Oooh driving, I've got to learn this summer I don't want to but I'd I've got to/

In this country, public transportation is minimal and incredibly inconvenient at best (unless you live in a huge city), so driving is a necessity. Sometimes I think that the public transportation in this country is designed to make it as inconvenient to use as possible.

yeah, transport in Blair is terrible and more often than not my bus timetable is out of date, but by the Autumn I'm going to be commuting 30km or so to Dundee for college.

Km? Yeah, I thought I'd read that you were in... where? Scotland?

Still, from everything I've heard, at least you have transportation, and it makes sense to use it whenever possible. Here, the bus routes don't even connect... you often have to walk several blocks from where one bus lets you off to a connecting stop where you can board another bus. The bus doesn't go to the train station. The trains are going to fewer and fewer cities all the time. (forget about a train going to a small town, it just doesn't happen.) It's not unusual for the closest small town with any kind of shopping area to be 20 miles or more away from where you happen to live. (many people in the UK have no idea just how vast the US is, and how far away everything is from wherever you happen to be) Is it any wonder we use so much oil in the US?

Yeah Perthshire Scotland a wee town called Blairgowrie, it's really nice and buses are fairly regular but it's an hours drive to anywhere useful

Ah. Where I grew up in Maryland, it's a half hour's drive to anyplace that has any shopping at all, and at least 45 minutes (maybe an hour now, with increased traffic) to a halfway decent mall.

Here, it only takes me about 20 minutes to drive to the mall, and maybe only 10 minutes to drive to any of several different grocery stores (in different directions, of course) or small shopping centers. By bus, it would take at least 2 hours to get to the mall, and I'm not sure you could even get to some of the shopping centers via bus.

by bus it takes over an hour or two to get anywhere, even to the next couple of towns over it involves going up back roads to pick people up, going back down those roads going to ever teeny town between here and your destination, I hate buses.