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!