Brandon O'Brien

Wednesday, September 4, 2013 @ 9:01 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 70

I had a horrible night's sleep last night because the guy in the bunk above me must have been having some issues and literally tossed, turned, coughed, sneezed and shook the entire freaking night. Each time one or a combo of those would happen, it would send vibrations down to my bunk, amplifying them along the way.

When I woke up, I had a couple cups of coffee to snap me out of the bad mood I was in from having the worst night's sleep I can remember in recent years. After breakfast I changed into my beach gear with the plan to get my travel to Belgium booked for next week and to try my hand at stand up paddle boarding.

First, I wanted to get my travel booked and get it out of the way. I went to the bus station but realized the ticket office was a few blocks away. When I got there, I had to wait in line for almost an hour with other people trying to book train, bus and coach tickets.

I already had the coach information I wanted written down, but upon talking to the ticket agent he told me I could take a train to London for half the price of the coach and get there twice as fast. I was sold. The coach from London to Brussels was still the best option so I also booked that.

Yesterday when I was walking along the beach I saw a company advertising an hour long paddleboard rental for £10. I made mental note of where it was and went back today. I've never tried paddleboarding before but it didn't seem like it should be that hard. It seemed like it was mostly a balance sport and if you could master that, you'd be fine.

I rented the board and got into the water. I realized right away that it wasn't going to be quite as easy as I though. For the first 15 minutes I just stayed on my knees paddling around. Eventually I stood up and paddled around for a while. The waves didn't seem too bad from shore but when you're on a 2 foot wide board trying to balance and paddle while not falling off, any disturbance in the water seems extreme.

My hour was coming to a close so I headed back to shore and officially made it without falling off! I was pretty proud of myself for that accomplishment. There was a group of people who took lessons and they went out a little after I did. I watched several of them fall in multiple times, so I felt like I at least did better than that, even without a minute of instruction!

I got back to the hostel, ate, showered and caught up on a few episodes of Dexter. Tomorrow I'll get up and run in the morning. It looks like it's the last hot day here for a while so I'll try to take advantage of it. I'm debating going to a digital art / electronic music show tomorrow night. I'll do a little more research and see if it looks worth it.

Teaser photos:

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Tuesday, September 3, 2013 @ 8:02 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 69

After breakfast this morning I packed a lunch and went out to the beach to read for a while. After lunch I walked down to ASDA and got some more oranges and some pasta sauce for dinner tonight. It was getting pretty hot after the clouds broke so I came back to the hostel and worked on plans for Belgium.

I booked 3 nights in a hostel in Brussels and then 4 nights in a hostel in Bruges. From Bruges I can take day trips to some other cities such as Ghent.

I'm really looking forward to starting the next leg of my journey. Ireland and the UK have been great, but I'm ready to experience more of Europe than the English speaking countries. I'm also looking forward to trying some new beer. I've had some good beers, some average beers and some crappy beers while in the UK but I'm ready to try some Belgian beers. The hostel I'm staying at in Bruges has a bar with 25 different Belgian beers to try.

Tomorrow I'm going to head to the coach station and buy my bus tickets to Brussels. I'll need to get from Brighton to London and then from London to Brussels. I'm planning on taking the overnight bus so I don't waste a full day traveling. We'll see how that goes. I'm not sure what the plan is for when it comes time to cross over into France though. Will I have to get off the bus and onto a boat? Will the bus just drive onto a ferry? Maybe the ticket agent tomorrow will know.

Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Monday, September 2, 2013 @ 9:04 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 68

I went for an hour long run this morning along the beach then waited around the hostel because I had to switch rooms. I had lunch then waited, worked and read while my bed in the new room was getting made.

After getting situated in the new room, I showered and then read and worked a little longer. It started to get noisy in the hostel so I went outside and read in a park for a while. For dinner I had some tortellioni (which I learned is non-meat filled tortellini), chicken, asparagus, lemon, garlic, butter and olive oil concoction again.

I'm kinda running out of things to do here so I'm thinking about renting a paddle board this week and taking it out. I've never tried it before but the ocean is really calm here and I've seen a lot of people out on them.

The ClearCheckbook Money Management app for Windows Phone 8 was approved by Microsoft today. I'm hoping that will help bring more users to the site and help existing users have more options to access their finances. Now all that's left is a Blackberry 10 app and then I'll be happy for a while.

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Sunday, September 1, 2013 @ 7:45 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 67

My plan for the day was to head down to the beach to read and swim some more. I packed my lunch and went down. I read for a little bit but it started to cloud up and a stiff breeze kicked up which cooled everything down.

Rather than stay on the beach and shiver I came back to the hostel where I worked for a little bit and read for a while. The Co-Operative Food Co has some really good Minestrone soup that I had the other day. It was 2 for £3 so I bought two of them yesterday and had one for dinner tonight.

I'll probably just read the rest of the evening. It's Sunday night so everyone has pretty much calmed down and the lounge is pretty relaxed. Tomorrow I'm going to get up and go for a run in the morning. Running on the promenade along the beach is really nice. It's really wide and in the mornings it's pretty empty. Plus there aren't any streets to cross and cars to contend with.

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Saturday, August 31, 2013 @ 9:42 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 66

Since I've spent the last 2 days basically working all day, I decided to head to the beach and enjoy the great weather. First, I went to ASDA and picked up some more apples, oranges and crisps for the rest of the week, then found an empty spot along the beach to lay down.

The beaches here in Brighton don't have sand, but instead are all smoothed rocks. I made a mound out of them and used it as a backrest so I could comfortably read. After reading for a while and eating lunch I was starting to warm up so I went into the water to cool down.

The water was pretty chilly so I only went in until my waist for a few minutes. When I got out I was sufficiently cooled down and stayed on the beach for another hour or so to dry off. Back at the hostel I showered then went to pick up some more soup for dinner and another loaf of bread to make sandwiches for next week's lunches.

This morning I also decided to book another week here in Brighton because it's as good a place as any to spend the rest of my time in the UK. On September 9th I'll check out of the hostel here then head to Belgium! That will leave me with 102 days to spend in mainland Europe. A week of that will be in Morocco and there are a few other countries I want to visit that don't count toward the Schengen Zone 90 day visa so that will work perfectly.

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Friday, August 30, 2013 @ 8:15 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 65

I got up and went for a run this morning. The weather was perfect for a run along the beach. It was partly overcast with a little breeze to help cool things down.

There were still some more items I wanted to knock off my todo list for work so I basically spent the rest of the day working on ClearCheckbook. I took a couple breaks to read but I ended up getting quite a bit of work done which felt nice.

I forgot that it's already Friday night again. I don't really feel like going out and wasting money on booze so I'm not sure what I'll do tonight. The lounge of the hostel seems to get pretty noisy at night so I'll probably hang out here and try to read for a bit before it gets too loud to concentrate.

Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Thursday, August 29, 2013 @ 8:08 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 64

After 2 months of traveling and not sitting behind my desk working as much as I normally do, my list of bug fixes and to-do's for ClearCheckbook was piling up. It was a really nice day out today but I decided I better get some work done.

I submitted the ClearCheckbook Windows Phone app to Microsoft for approval, answered a bunch of emails, fixed a bunch of random bugs and made some updates to ClearCheckbook as well. I think I'll do the same thing tomorrow, although I'm planning on going for a run in the morning.

In other news, Holly is officially coming to visit me in Paris from October 21-28! We got the flight booked and will work on getting a hotel situated over the next week or so.

Tags: brighton, daily journal, england

Posted from: England

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 @ 7:33 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 63

Not too much to report on today. I got up, ate, then went for a long walk along the promenade. I stopped and ate lunch and read for a while then made my way back. Back at the hostel I answered some emails, did a little research into other European cities and then showered.

Rather than head into Belgium on the 2nd, I think I'm going to wait just a little bit longer here in the UK. Another week should be all I need before I'm free to head into mainland Europe without running into the 90 day visa limit.

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 @ 8:10 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 62

Since I'd been doing so much walking the last few days I decided to take it easy today. I took my time this morning then went down to the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. It's free admission so I went there to walk around for a bit.

They had a few different exhibits and it was nice walking through them. I have to be honest and say that the museum and gallery in Cardiff was immensely better, but for being a free gallery to spend some time in I can't complain.

I had lunch in the gardens outside the museum. There was a family eating lunch a few feet away and a seagull ran up and grabbed half a sandwich out of the dad's hand and ran away with it. It was pretty funny to see the whole thing happen. It was definitely the most aggressive gull I've seen since I was at Sea World (those things will swoop in and grab stuff out of your hand while you're putting it in your mouth). The gull went back a few more times but the family shooed it away before it got anything else.

After lunch I went and got a haircut and my beard trimmed. It's nice having everything look a little more tame. My hair was starting to look a little ratty after not being cut or trimmed for 2 months.

I came back to the hostel to relax for a while then made dinner. I realized I could receive calls to my cell phone from my computer if I was online, so I talked to my parents for a while. There's a football (soccer) match on TV in the hostel now so I'll probably watch this for a bit, or go out for a drink and watch it in a pub.

Tomorrow I'm going to plan my next course of action for the trip. I'm thinking about heading into mainland Europe by going to Brussels once my time in Brighton is over. The trains were extremely expensive but I did find an overnight bus from London for a much more reasonable £39.

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton,

Posted from: England

Monday, August 26, 2013 @ 6:11 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 61

Yesterday I noticed some chalk cliffs to the east of Brighton and I wanted to check them out. Today I ate breakfast, made a sandwich and then set off eastward along the coast. After a couple of miles the shoreline changed and the chalk cliffs made their appearance.

I walked 4.5 miles down to Rottingdean. By now it was really starting to warm up (a high of 79 with humidity in the 90's). I stopped for lunch and ate by the ocean. Between the chalk cliffs reflecting the sun and blocking the wind, it was really hot. I found some stairs that went up above the cliffs and hiked up there all the way back. Up there there was some nice wind and I wasn't getting that reflection from the cliff faces.

Back in Brighton I checked out the Evening Star pub. Last night I went out and had a pint of a beer from a brewery called Dark Star and it was really good. After a little research I found out the brewery started in the basement of the Evening Star.

I tried their Espresso beer and was really impressed. I'll head back later in the week and try some of their other beers.

On the way back to the hostel I bought a few things for dinner (lemon, garlic, asparagus and some red pepper ravioli) then got back and downloaded the latest Breaking Bad and watched it. It was still a little too early to make dinner so I read for a while before the hunger really hit.

For dinner I made the red pepper ravioli with asparagus in a lemon / garlic / butter / olive oil sauce. It came out really good! It was a slightly different play on the shrimp/ravioli I made back in Cardiff but tasted just as good. I really like this combination and it's something I'll make regularly when I'm back home.

I was planning on getting a haircut/beard trim but the place was closed today due to the bank holiday. I'll try again tomorrow.

In other news, I've officially been in Europe for 2 months now. At some points it feels like it's been a long time but at others it feels like time has blown by. I feel like I've already seen and done so much but I know there's so much more left to do before I head home!

Teaser photos:

Chalk cliffs near Brighton

Chalk cliffs near Brighton

Hiking on the cliffs

Brighton and Brighton Pier

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England