How do I love him? Let me count the ways. The ding-ding-ding that announces his arrival and, less happily, his departure. The view from behind as he slinks around corners like a caterpillar in an old-fashioned video game. The high-pitched whine he emits when accelerating through Peter's Place and then up over the canal. The voice of the posh, bi-lingual lady announcer who manages to make Windy Arbour - who even knew there was a place called Windy Arbour? - sound vaguely sexy. There's just no getting away from it. He's the tram of my dreams, writes Róisín Ingle.
I love the Luas or, as we've taken to calling it in our house, the Danny Day. A friend insists on calling it the Rebecca but I think that kind of lowers the tone. I have to confess I skipped the queue on the first afternoon which would have been fine had I not been caught rapid by my eight-year-old niece who just happened to be passing. "You cheated," said Bláithín accusingly down the phone when I rang. I tried to explain. That I was running late. That I wanted to make sure I got on it before the last tram left. That being on the Luas on the first day was really, really important to me. "You cheated," she repeated. Pesky kids.
Two days later I returned to St Stephen's Green and took my place behind the beaming masses all waiting patiently for, har, har, a free ride. Most of my fellow queue inhabitants were busy announcing their surprise to each other that they didn't really have anywhere to go. "We are literally just getting on it to go to Sandyford and then come back here," said one woman amazed at herself. "Literally." "Same here," replied a smiling man, while behind him a little girl lost her grip on a yellow helium balloon. We all looked skyward until it disappeared behind a puffy cloud and then we gave each other these silly Luas grins.
I don't quite know what it is about Luas that brings out the 10-year-old in us. I was only a bit older than that when the first DART came through Sandymount and we packed like pilchards into the green train, marvelling at the stunning views when we got to Killiney.
The Luas doesn't have the same open vistas except for that sweeping glimpse of water and greenery before you go over the nine arches bridge at Dundrum, but it's got a gritty urban feel which I like just as much. You can see people hanging washing out on the line. Watch people working in stuffy offices. Here's a top tip for voyeurs: if you sit on the left side of the tram at Charlemont you can gaze right into the offices of a bank and watch as glum-looking suits shuffle bits of paper around. There is a man working there with a desk almost as messy as mine. Almost.
If you haven't had a ride on the Luas yet I'd recommend standing during your maiden journey - the views are better and you can move from side to side. Just be careful to keep hold of the yellow safety bars when it's slowing down or speeding up, and keep an eye out for low-flying elbows at peak times.
And don't be afraid to strike up conversations with strangers on the tram. I'm positive we can get away with those "Jaysus, isn't this great altogether" kind of chats for a good few months.
One of the highlights of my first trips on the Luas has been answering the mobile phone while zipping through places I've never been to like Cowper and Balally. "I'm on the Luas," I say louder than I need to, loving the newness of the phrase.
Personally I enjoy the tram so much I'll be taking the Luas not to get anywhere necessarily but just to, literally, take the Luas. It's going to be pleasure trips on the Green Line forever - or at least until the novelty wears off. You see, apart from my sister's house in Ranelagh, I don't really have any reason to alight at the Luas stations. At the end of the line at Sandyford industrial Estate it's all finance and software companies as far as the eye can see. Not even a coffee shop to distract you from jumping back on the next town-bound Luas, although hopefully this will change.
So far there seems to be pretty much unanimous affection for our newest, old form of public transport. But this being Dublin, it stands to reason some people are not going to afford Danny Day the respect he deserves. Like the young man at the St Stephen's Green stop last week who, announcing he was about to become the first person in Ireland to use the station as a toilet, proceeded to relieve himself all over the shiny new ticket machine. It's the Luas not the Loos, people. Let's all try and remember that.