Adults have all the fun

Well hello there, beautiful. Please, take a seat next to me. I'm Brandon, it's wonderful to meet you... Life, you say? Oh, how do you manage being so wonderful? I've always wondered...

There are a lot of things that I have done that have been the best experience in my life. Yes, that sentence means what I intended, and is meticulously true. Study abroad is an unparalleled experience of freedom and falls into the aforementioned category.

Enough of that.

I went to Dublin and Cork with Justin this weekend. As you may or may not know, there are a group of students from my college, CSB/SJU, studying down there on their study abroad trip. Two of them are very good friends of mine, which came up in a conversation with Justin. He then said, "let's go to Cork this weekend." I thought, "this man is insane, that's like 6 hours by bus for basically two nights." Well, I wasn't wrong, but I had the wrong reason. We had some adventures (meaning walking around in the rain) before we got on the bus to Dublin. I should mention, the bus system here has an unnavigable website. Atrocious. Like a horse riding a walrus.

When we got to Dublin, we learned that the last bus to Cork left at 6 pm. Awkward. After deciding there is no way in hell we would pay 50 Euro extra to take a train, we found a hostel map and set out to find one. The first one was nice, but 26 euro is pretty steep. Of course, then, we decided that 19 euro for a super terrible hostel was reasonable. Honestly, though, this place was hilarious. Pizza joint in the front, hostel in the back. The owner even offered a discount on pizzas for his guests. This place obviously was not clean, we slept fully clothed and did not shower there. We did eat at a cool persian place and have an awesome Paulaner's at a pub in Dublin.

Waking up at 7 am to catch the 8 am bus to Cork put us in Cork at 12, just in time to meet Eric and part of the crew for the end of their breakfast. It's cool, though, we had toast.

We then went to the Jameson factory, where I discovered again that I much prefer a whiskey drink to a beer. The tour guide was also hilariously bad. I've heard GPS systems with more personality than this woman. Not an exaggeration. Lucky for her, though, the tour was set up very well and was quite interesting.

After the tour, we went grocery shopping, which took us past the shopping area. I will have to go back; they had a sale on jeans for 13 Euro! Not the only tempting sale, just my favorite that I managed to confirm. They, being the Cork students, made us an excellent 'feast' that made us feel quite welcome and also full. Apparently, there was a beer-fest of sorts in town, so we went to the Franciscan Well and had a few. I had the Rebel Red, which was OK. There were also tasty looking burgers being grilled, but I wasn't in the mood to pay 3.50 euro for a burger. It was a pretty great day.

Hannah, an american on my floor, made macaroni and cheese last night and invited a few folk over. It was pretty awesome, and made me want to make some cookies. I'll report back with results later.

Look forward to "A day in the life of Brandon" AKA "People can live this happily?" style post with pictures when I have a bunch of time. Maybe the week after next.

I'm going to Derry this weekend with a ton of international students; should be great craic.

Just a wee post for ya

I'm getting a bit caught up in the swings of life, so you all get to enjoy a shorter blog from me today.

Two international students organized a trip to Giant's Causeway through a tour bus group. They managed to get us a great group rate of 15 pounds for the whole trip, which included several stops. What were the stops you say? I'm glad you're such a wonderful audience.

The Northern Irish countryside is exactly as pretty as they say it is.

And there certainly is plenty of it. It's a familiar beauty that is different in a good way. It isn't better than any other nature I've seen, and it isn't worse. Like a pretty girl who is trying a new look.

The 10th most dangerous bridge in world, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

Which, as we all know from Cracked.com, is among some pretty steep competition. (As opposed to shaky. I hate it when reality doesn't comply with great opportunities for puns)

I didn't pay the 4 pounds to cross it and I don't regret it. It definitely wasn't at all dangerous and seemed rather dull. Justin is the man you see in the picture. He's from the states and really enjoys travel and climbing, so you may see more of him on this blog.

We then went to the Bushmills whiskey distillery for lunch. I had some shepherd's pie and a glass of 12 year old whiskey. I wouldn't know what good whiskey is, but this blend is only available at the factory and was only 50p more than the 10 year. I figured I might as well. "Go big or go home," as Justin said. It seemed good. Joel may convince me to have one with him on the balcony of our hyper-successful business conglomerate overlooking the man-made lakes of Jupiter. The factory smelled pretty good and I wish we would have had time for the tour.

The driver then stopped by the ruins of an old castle, part of which had 'spontaneously' fallen into the sea, as the story goes. I'm making you go to facebook for pictures, as I don't like HTML.

There we were, at Giant's Causeway. Justin and I mostly looked about for places to climb, finding a lot of cool views along the way. The rocks weren't that special, but it was fun to see. We climbed a little, too. My favorite part of the Causeway was imagining climbing it, but apparently that is not allowed. We ran around a bit more, then got back to the bus 20 minutes late. It was ok, though, since the French folk were 10 minutes later than us, as I had predicted by us passing them on the way back.

This is of course, not as short as I had intended, and not all I have to say. I have done so many fun things already, some of them were even homework.

Until next time, don't forget to tip your busdriver more than you tip your wait staff!

Through the Looking Glass

Guess what! It's different over here. I was prepared for the big things, such as looking the other way for cars, not understanding people, and how expensive things are (ok maybe I wasn't really prepared for exactly how REALLY FREAKING EXPENSIVE everything is), but I wasn't prepared for the small things (like that computer science students here have no idea how to use linux!!!!1), which I won't list right now because that's what this post will cover.

First, there are nagging bothers. These are the things that are just odd, but don't really matter. Everything is a bit smaller. They leave their garbage in bags outside rather than in bins (which I assume is because they just love small creatures so much).Their sinks don't combine the water in one spout, so you either wash your hands with scalding water or ice water (this I assume is because they don't want their children to be weak). I know they have the technology for this, since the shower is nice. Toilets use probably 3 times as much water as in the states. Urinals don't have a flush button, they just do it automatically every so often. Oh my, it's terribly wasteful. Their streets are labeled with a sign about a foot off the ground on a wall if you're lucky enough that they are labeled. If you're really lucky they're on the side of a building about 10 feet up. It's ok though, because I have GPS. It was terrible when I didn't, though.

Then there are things that are slightly better. The city is pretty clean for a city, which is probably a result of litter fines and a response to unemployment (paying people to pick it up). The toilets are in a pretty nice condition, since there are less and they are less accessible I guess. Fries are really freaking amazing. They're also much worse for you. The cheese is brilliant. I got the cheapest cheddar I could find... best cheddar of my life. I am probably eating far too much of it. Imagine if I bought more expensive cheese!

Second, there are the big deal things. Those things that just really make you want to tell someone they're wrong and they need to fix this. All the guys and girls that go to the pubs look like they're from Jersey Shore. Yes, orange, too much makeup, the outfits, and the hair. It's a bit sad. It's expensive. It's about double what you'd pay stateside. This makes grocery shopping a little stressful, not to mention that the grocery stores are super small and don't really have anything. Also, stores close at 6. We were downtown, went into a thrift store at 530, walked out at 615, and everything on the street was closed. It was more than a bit spooky. The internet sucks because they stream TV over it a lot here. Greedy. They've blocked all gaming ports on the internet. This is a sad occasion. I don't watch TV, so I'll probably be pretty bored and study a ton during my afternoons. Last, the professors seem unnecessary, but that may not be true as time goes on.

They do some things much better, though. If you buy a beer, they basically give you food free (good food) at most places. This a great scheme to get you to go to a specific place, and is great for pre-gaming (slang which they don't know over here yet, but I'm bringing. They just say pre-drinks, how boring is that?). They don't skimp on the trans fats or the oils. Mmmm, tasty. Mars bars are delicious. And their clubs are discriminatorily priced (totally a word), meaning that you pay a membership fee rather than the school just gives them your money. This is good because everything else is REALLY DAMN EXPENSIVE. They also only pay $5k in tuition. That's pretty dang right. My student email account also gets about one email a day. This is a relief.

Now that you know how I feel about my daily life, I can talk about events. My first day of class was today. I thought that I had class at 9 am. I planned about 10 minutes for getting lost. I left right on time and discovered the building exactly 5 minutes late. Well, no big deal, I'll just take a seat and learn some Computer Sci..physics? Do I have the wrong room? No, I double checked. Wrong building? Maybe. So I just walked out. I eventually found some computers and found that my class was actually at 10. Hmm, time to kill. Facebook! At least this isn't China. I went back to the classroom and a bunch of guys were standing outside waiting for class. Yeah, no girls, must be the right class. They laughed at that. Walk in, sit in the second row on the right side of middle like I always try for. Everyone fills up the rows behind me. Odd omen. But the class is full so the room decided it would be as well. The professor starts up the syllabus normally, and asks how many people use linux. This is a 3rd-year (their last year) course so they should be pretty well versed in comp sci by now. I was the only person to raise my hand. That's not a good sign Queen's. You ought to know better than that. Maybe it's not expensive enough for them.

Alright, you get one more story, but only because I like talking about myself. I went to a hockey game with the International Students. Their stadium is pretty small and their team was pretty low budget. As in no instant replay low budget. There were a lot of fun little things, much like a St Paul Saints Game. For example, you could pay a pound or two to enter into a drawing to win the shirt off the back of one of the players. I was tempted to try my luck, but I'd already paid 10 pounds for the game, so I bought an ice cream for a reasonable pound instead. I hate those unreasonable pounds; they're so full of themselves.

Note: There are pictures on facebook and I have captions explaining them. Mostly from tours and the hockey game. I'm too lazy to embed them into such long posts. Maybe as life gets boring. I wouldn't like your odds.

Feeling Lucky

Hello everyone!

It is currently 10:45 am London time, and I am sitting in the WiFi lounge of The Generator Hostel where I stayed the night.

First, I should probably make you aware of my plans for this blog. I plan on talking about my unique interactions with the world. Rather than telling you what I did, I would like to convey how I experienced it. If you've ever had a conversation with me, you almost certainly know that I love to talk about myself. Give me a place where that's all I'm supposed to do, and I may tend to drag on or be repetitive, please note this in the comments if it becomes problematic (and if so, I apologize in advance.) That being said, thanks for reading!

Second, I am lucky. I always have been and probably always will be. You'll notice this. Don't hate me too much.

Let's get into it, shall we?

My father is a pilot for Delta airlines, which allows me, as his immediate family member, to fly standby on any Delta flights for free. Remember how I said I was lucky? The best option was a Delta flight from MPLS to London Heathrow, nonstop of course. It just so happens that my best friend is studying abroad in London; this may be a good opportunity to visit him. Plans grew up and fell through, but Monday (yes, it's Wedneday; yes, we were to hand out on Tuesday; No, I hadn't booked a hostel yet; no, I had no way to get in touch with Joel without internet) we sent a bunch of email back and forth making plans. I got Joel's address and found a hostel at about 2 pm Monday. So with my place for the night finally in order, I was ready to go. Then I got an email that my credit card had been declined at 7 pm. So I got my dad's card and still ended up early to the airport. It was time to fly, and my dad got me a few pounds more than a hundred to get me started.

When you fly standby, you generally book first class, as you then have access to empty seats in first class and coach, though first class costs some tiny amount of money (generally 15-30 dollars.) This means that I, of course, had a first class seat to London. I was excited. My dad had made sure I knew basically everything about how to get to my hostel and about my airplane twice over. I had a lie-flat seat, personal service, and a TV with more than enough things I wanted to watch. They started the flight with a few, free of course, drinks including sparkling wine, which I may or may not have drank and may or may not have been ID'd for. I was running well, to put it bluntly. I watched a bunch of stuff and slept for about 2 hours. I also wrote a bit, but that was just for fun, not sharing. I wasn't really tired, so I watched more stuff. This isn't important but I want to say it: The Other Guys is a pretty good movie. Predictable, but pretty dang good. Scott Pilgrim is a super great movie. I had a surf and turf dinner of shrimp and steak, and the steak wasn't tough! Our descent was the best part, though. I could catch glimpses of the geography, but cloud cover was a bit much to see everything all at once. I was not disappointed, though, because the view on the landing was great. About 5 miles out there were a bunch of football fields, golf courses, houses, and highways. Just like America. Except they were football fields instead of football fields. And they instead of goal posts, they had... goal posts. About 2 miles out they had cows. And literally 10 meters from the fence around the tarmac there was a man playing bagpipes. Yes, he was wearing a kilt. I take that as a good omen. Maybe that's colloquially incorrect, but I'm ignoring that possibility.

So since I'd flown Delta, I got to go through the fast lane at customs. This was super nice and probably saved me about an hour of "queuing," which I had to look up how to spell. With my visa, I collected my bag and simply walked through the nothing to declare section. You read that right. No searches, no questions, I just walked right through, along with about 30 other people at the time. Huh. This weirded me out especially since at customs there is a sign that says you are not allowed to record the process at all (ignore the fact that that sentence probably needed commas somewhere.)

I got onto the tubes and found my hostel straightaway. I gave them the booking number and got my room key. I walked into my room and two of roommates were there. One was naked when I walked in. I don't care, but he was thoroughly embarrassed. I had a good laugh and introduced myself and all that good stuff. I washed my face, put on deodorant, and headed to the internet. I just left my stuff in my room, since the luggage room is accessible by all guests and my room only 10. The strange part is that I felt it was secure. I wasn't fooling myself into actually thinking it was secure, I just had a feeling it would be fine. Per usual, I was right. I felt I could just leave it and go visit Joel, so I did.

I, of course, had terrible directions from the Hostel staff. It turns out that hostel staff are not quite competent at giving directions to a new tourist. That's ok; my room, with breakfast, was only 20 dollars. It only took me an hour to find Joel's class building, with it normally being a 30-40 minute 2 mile walk. Joel and I then walked to his flat and back to the class building. Yes, his flat is right next to my hostel. Well, I didn't mind walking with Joel in London. We were men about town. His professor then took a few of us to a pub, where, since I hadn't slept or eaten since the plane, a good pint got me pleasantly drunk for my size. His professor also made fun of me for being lost, but I hopefully made up for that by explaining the oligarchy of the airline industry, even though I forgot the term OPEC (ouch.)

Joel had a play to see, so one of his classmates and I rushed for seats for "The 39 Steps." Our seats? 4th row, center. Win! Very entertaining show, I only fell asleep like 3 times. After the show, I basically just walked back to my hostel and went to sleep. Oh, and my stuff that I had left all day was just fine (I triple-checked, dad.) Woke up to my alarm at 830. Yep, I got a perfect night's sleep at a hostel. The shower in the morning was actually too hot! It was beautiful. The staff asked me how everything was, and I said the water was a bit too hot. They laughed at me and told me I was lucky. I knew that already.

Breakfast was a "full english breakfast" consisting of all the breakfast drinks, cereal, and toast. Well, that's pretty good for the price. I had cocoa crisps :D I feel like I said too much, but I have way more to talk about. If there's anything about which you are curious, feel free to message me!

Addendum: I will upload some pictures eventually. Such as of my packing and all that.

Until next time!