“New Yark! New Yark!” screamed the 18 Irish firefighters who were celebrating their night off at a pub in Dublin. They had just found out where the two attractive American girls (and their male accompaniment) whom they had been talking to were from. “New Yark is feckin’ crazy. Real grandlike.”

So is Ireland.

Walking the streets of Dublin over spring break (with the best tour guide a fellow could ask for), I was reminded of the first steps I took into Disney World as a child. “This place is more amazing than Ben Affleck’s ability to be successful without an ounce of talent,” I thought to myself. “There are two bars on every block, and most of them are open by noon!”

I was visiting a Binghamton student who’s spending the semester at the University College of Dublin … and I realized that I could never go to school in Ireland.

I just don’t have the will power.

In fact, the U.S. military should consider contacting American students who successfully study in Ireland, because they are clearly mentally tough.

If alcohol was as easily accessible for students in Binghamton as it is in Ireland, I, and most of my friends, would never have passed a single class.

However, none of the students I met in Ireland had allowed the constant availability of alcohol to ruin their academics. You see, two months into their stay, they no longer drank like students here do. They drank like the Irish do.

They drank like people who were no longer drinking illegally.

Over a decade ago, Geraldo Rivera popularized the word “binge drinking” to characterize the excessive drinking standards of college students. But what people who actually use that word seriously don’t realize is — “binge drinking” usually happens because people who really are old enough to drink, but are not legally allowed to, feel the need to horde alcohol whenever possible because it can be so hard to get.

The students in Ireland had found that they were able to drink casually. They could buy beer, bring it home and not have to finish it all as soon as possible to avoid the risk of being found with it.

They could, for instance, have conversations while drinking, sometimes even about things other than drinking.

When you turn 18 you officially become an adult, which is why the students in Ireland drink like adults.

Graham Kates is a junior political science major, who had sex in the Guiness brewery, the most sacred place in drinking.