Brandon O'Brien

Monday, September 9, 2013 @ 4:10 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 75

Well, today is my last day in the UK for this trip. In a few hours I'll board a coach that will take me to Brussels, Belgium overnight.

I've had a lot of fun in the Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales but I'm ready to move on. I'm not sure if it was due to the time of year or if that's how it always is, but it seemed like most places I went in Ireland and the UK were filled with people who were there to party. It was a rarity to come across a fellow long term traveler.

Today also marks the last day I'll be in an English speaking country until I return back to the States on December 17th. That's a full three months of being in countries where I don't speak the native language. I'm sure it'll be challenging but that's also a part of this trip that will be sure to stick out in my mind when I look back on it.

I'm in London's Victoria Coach Station right now. When I arrived here from Brighton it was pouring down rain. I wanted to see some of the sights so I checked my big bag and set out. I got pretty wet and ended up spending a little time in a pub waiting for the rain to die down.

When it looked like the rain was slowing, I took off and saw Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey. I've got to get rid of the rest of my GBP before I leave. Between dinner and a few more drinks that shouldn't be a problem.

I'll upload photos from today once I'm settled into my hostel in Brussels. It's 4:10 now and the sun finally broke through the clouds. I'll probably go out and explore a little more, even if it's just to a nearby pub for a drink and maybe dinner.

Teaser photos:

Buckingham Palace

London Eye

Telephone box

Big Ben

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Tags: daily journal, england, london

Posted from: England

Sunday, September 8, 2013 @ 6:04 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 74

Tonight is my last night in Brighton and I couldn't be more excited to get the rest of my journey started. I'll post more of my impressions and thoughts about the UK and Ireland tomorrow before getting on my coach to Belgium.

This morning I got up early to go for a run. The temperature might have dropped 20 degrees from the highs a few days ago, but the weather started out great. It was alternating between clouds and blue sky while on my run. I actually finished my run a few minutes quicker than normal and I think that's because of the weather.

Back at the hostel I showered and then worked on ClearCheckbook the rest of the day. The weather has been alternating between sunny, cloudy and torrential downpours all day. Fortunately I haven't been caught out in the rain today.

During my 9 hour "layover" in London I'm planning on seeing a few of the big sights that are within easy walking distance from the Victoria Coach station. Those include Buckingham Palace, Parliament (Big Ben) and the London Eye.

Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Saturday, September 7, 2013 @ 7:19 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 73

Since I hadn't properly washed my clothes since Bristol (I've done ghetto laundry several times but a sink doesn't compare to a washer), I wanted to get that done before heading to Belgium. I found a laundromat and washed everything.

After getting back and eating lunch I started working on ClearCheckbook again. I've been doing that all day aside from running to ALDI to pick up some stuff for dinner. I got a microwaveable steamed veggies bowl and some chicken. I mixed the chicken with the rest of my pasta sauce and had all of it with some bread. The goal is to clear out the random stuff I have in the fridge before leaving on Monday.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow... probably just work some more. I've been on a roll the last few days and figure I might as well ride this motivation wave while I can.

Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Friday, September 6, 2013 @ 8:49 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 72

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain. I had breakfast then started working on some major updates to ClearCheckbook. The codebase that the site's currently using hasn't really been updated since the end of 2008 when I launched V3 of the site. What I'm working on now is upgrading all of the javascript libraries from Prototype to jQuery and I'm also working to make the site responsive (so it loads and looks better across a wide range of devices).

After lunch the rain finally stopped and the sun came out, but it was a full 20 degrees colder today than it was yesterday. I still had to walk around in jeans and a long sleeve shirt when I went out to pick up a few items for dinner.

I had some tomato and lentil soup (very good), bread and some steamed veggies for dinner. After dinner I worked on CCB some more until just a little while ago when huge groups started checking in and everyone started getting into Friday night party mode in the lobby.

I'll probably find time to do some much needed laundry tomorrow. There are a few laundromats I found near here so I'll head to one of them. I want to have a clean set of clothes before heading to Belgium!

Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

Thursday, September 5, 2013 @ 6:57 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 71

Today is going to be the last warm day I have for quite a while. The high today was 84 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky all day. Tonight rain comes in and the next couple of days are going to be at least 10 degrees cooler. Once I get into Belgium the weather looks like it's going to be in the 60's.

I started off this morning by getting up early and going for an hour long run. I came back completely drenched in sweat since it was already blazing hot, sunny and humid by the time I started. After showering I ate lunch then went out to the beach to read (under the cover of shade) for a while.

On the way back to the hostel I picked up a beard comb and scissors so I can keep some of the raggedness down as it grows longer. I also got some more soup, bread and apples from Tesco.

For dinner I had some soup and then spent a little while researching Firefox OS. Since it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow I think I'm going to work the ClearCheckbook mobile site and make it compatible for Firefox OS.

Teaser photos:

Enjoying a cider by the pier

Brighton Pier at dusk

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Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

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