This week, I graduated with a Master’s, travelled across Ireland, became a Viking and encountered a Malagasy giant jumping rat.

As you can imagine this has been my favourite week so far.

THE SAGA OF CHI-RAB-ULA

The saga starts on Sunday, when I flew to Manchester with my family ahead of my graduation on Tuesday.

My degree was a Master’s in Finance and Business, which sounds terrifyingly serious but was actually surprisingly fun.

I enjoyed it far more than my undergraduate degree in marketing, where three quarters of one of our main assignments depended on how good a TikTok we could create.

Three years of education.

One vertical video.

Anyway.

Tuesday arrived quickly.

Before I knew it, I had the gown on, had taken hundreds of family photos and was heading into Bridgewater Hall, a building I constantly walked past while living in Manchester without ever knowing what happened there.

It turns out they host concerts, events and, occasionally, the public destruction of a Spanish surname.

Inside, hundreds of graduates faced the stage while families filled the seats above, phones ready for the few seconds they had all travelled to capture.

Eventually, my row was called.

I joined the queue beside the stage and listened as everyone ahead of me had their names read out.

Then it was my turn.

“Class of Finance and Business: Jake Chi-RAB-Ula.”

If you have no idea what you just read or are about to hear below, neither do I.

My surname is Ciruela.

Pronounced see-RWEH-lah.

The Spanish word for plum.

Whatever that man said was not Ciruela.

Still, despite the name assassination, I officially graduated with a Master’s in Finance and Business.

After moving country and spending a year working towards it, the whole thing ended in seconds.

A handshake.

Another 100 photos.

Tutorial complete.

Before I could process any of it, I was already on a flight to Dublin.

TALE ONE: THE LAND OF WINTER

I did not expect to dislike Dublin.

But I definitely did not expect to like it this much.

We arrived to sunshine and actual heat, which felt suspicious for a country once called Hibernia, the land of winter.

The city felt alive.

Old pubs everywhere.

Horse-drawn taxis moving through normal traffic.

Murals covering anything that stood still long enough.

Random art stalls appearing around corners.

And of course people drinking from 11 in the morning like they had already completed a full day’s work.

Everywhere I looked, there was another strange little detail making me think:

Wait, Dublin is actually really fucking cool.

It was also stupidly expensive.

But I am choosing to focus on everything else.

We explored the city, travelled through the Wicklow Mountains and visited Kilkenny.

All beautiful.

But none involved becoming a Viking.

TALE TWO: THE VESSEL THAT DIED ON LAND

The Dublin Viking Splash Tour involves climbing into an old amphibious military vehicle and being driven around the city.

It was originally built to carry soldiers across land and water.

Now it carries tourists around Dublin while they scream at innocent pedestrians.

Progress.

Our driver was hilarious.

One minute, he was explaining Dublin’s history.

The next, he was pointing towards a group of office workers and ordering us to roar at them like Vikings.

For reasons I cannot explain, this quickly became the funniest thing in the world.

Some people laughed.

Some looked genuinely terrified.

Others watched us with the exhausted expression of people who see this vehicle every day.

Then it drove straight into the docks.

One second, we were on the road.

The next, this enormous military machine was floating through the water while our guide pointed out the offices lining Dublin’s docklands as though any of this was completely normal.

I was having far too much fun.

Against all odds, we survived the voyage.

The vehicle then died on the way back.

We had conquered the waters of Dublin only to be defeated by a normal road.

So my fellow warriors and I quietly climbed out and continued the saga on foot.

Which led us towards the beasts.

TALE THREE: THE BEASTS OF DUBLIN

We thought Dublin Zoo would be a nice little gap filler.

A few lemurs.

Some monkeys.

Maybe even a lion.

Absolutely not.

There were giraffes, hippos, rhinos, gorillas, tigers, leopards and, somehow, a Malagasy giant jumping rat.

A creature named by someone who clearly refused to leave out a single detail.

The place was enormous.

Every path led to another path, which somehow led to an entirely new collection of animals.

The enclosures were much bigger than I expected too, meaning the animals had plenty of space to move around, hide and position themselves in the worst possible place for a photograph.

I had an absolute blast.

I spent most of the visit walking around with my camera, waiting for something to look vaguely in my direction.

Sometimes it worked.

Most of the time, I captured the back of a giraffe or a tiger disappearing behind a bush.

I did not care.

I felt about eight years old.

It also made me realise how badly I want to go on a proper safari one day.

The zoo was brilliant, but seeing wild animals roaming around their natural habitat would be something else entirely.

Unfortunately, we had underestimated the size of the zoo and booked the Guinness Storehouse for later that afternoon.

So we eventually had to abandon the beasts, race across Dublin and finish the day with probably the freshest Guinness I will ever drink.

Not a terrible consolation prize.

THE FINAL TALE: THE CLIFFS BEFORE THE CROSSING

At this point, you would think we had done enough.

Graduation.

Dublin.

Mountains.

Vikings.

Wild beasts.

No.

Before a 9pm flight to Manchester and a 6am connection to Gibraltar, we travelled down to the fishing town of Howth and explored the coast.

The further we walked, the more the little town disappeared behind us.

Soon, it was just cliffs, blue water and a path curling around the Irish coastline.

I wanted to keep going but we did not have enough time to complete the full route, but I would happily return and walk the entire thing.

Preferably in spring, when Ireland can stop pretending to be Spain.

The journey home was considerably less heroic.

Our flight was delayed, I attempted and failed to sleep on the floor of Manchester Airport. At least, I claimed an entire row to myself on the 6am flight.

Then I flew home.

THE OPEN WORLD

On Monday morning, I woke up for work.

A few days earlier, I had graduated, become a Viking, photographed wild animals and climbed the cliffs of Howth.

Now I was staring at an extremely over-engineered spreadsheet I had created.

My inbox was full of emails explaining why I was not qualified enough for entry-level jobs at Europe’s next wave of startups.

The outreach campaign I launched last week had received precisely zero responses, unless you count automated out-of-office emails.

The saga was over.

For the first time since I was five, there is no tutorial telling me where to go next.

I can technically go anywhere, build anything and become anyone.

And I do not know whether that is exciting or terrifying.

I cannot stop thinking about how easy it would be to spend the next 40 years repeating that Monday morning.

Maybe this was my final Viking saga before life gets serious.

Or maybe it was the first of many.

I suppose that depends on whether I am brave enough to write the next one.