La Vie en France: 24 Hours in Dublin

Well my time here is almost up (for now..) and I decided to take one last big trip. I've always wanted to go to Scotland and Ireland. I have a friend who is going to school in Edinburgh, so I decided to take the opportunity to go there while I had it. I was looking up flights, and saw that there was a really cheap flight to Dublin from Basel, Switzerland. Basel is only about 40 min away from me. I also found a cheap flight from Dublin to Edinburgh. It turned out it was cheaper for me to stop in Dublin than to buy a plane ticket straight to Edinburgh! So there you go, that's why I had only 24 hours in Dublin. (side-note: I flew the discount airline RyanAir and ended up getting charged like 50 euros extra for my luggage, airport check-in, priority boarding, and who knows what else they slid in there. I guess we know why the flights are so cheap..I definitely lost money flying with them. Live and learn!)

I got there in the afternoon, and as predicted it was raining. The whole time I was there! The first day I just kinda hung out, wandered around town, and did some shopping(seriously so weird how different the fashion there was.. French peeps are way cuter). I also saw Trinity College, which was founded in the 1500's. That night I stayed at a really cute bed and breakfast. I was at first a little hesitant because I was by myself, but I met some nice people that I shared a room with, so things worked out well.

The second day I was there, I was flying out around 8pm so I pretty much had the whole day. I had to spend the time there wisely since it was limited. I considered Christ's Church, perhaps some well-known museums. But clearly I had other priorities, so I got up, ate a huge English breakfast (it had been way too long since I had some good bacon), and headed straight for the Guinness Brewery. It was about 10 euros to get in, but it was well worth every penny. I obvi just did the tour to get the free pint of Guinness at the end. No but they really did a nice job with this museum, they take you through all the steps and how the beer is made, show old advertisements, etc. I also found out that the Guinness company was founded in 1789. That's an old beer.

After I drank my Guinness, I decided to hit up a museum, since all of the museums in Dublin are free. I went to the Modern Art museum and hung out there for a few hours. I was pretty much the only person there, so it was nice to have the place to myself to look around. Afterwards I hung out in a really pretty park that's just right out front. Sitting in the park and looking through my guidebook, I realized that I missed out on something very important! The Jameson Distillery! I am NOT at all a big whisky drinker, but since it is my brother and his girlfriend's drink of choice, I decided I had to at least stop there in their honor. I was too cheap to do the tour, but I did spend some time looking around the gift shop, and taking the opportunity to stay out of the rain for a bit! After that the day was about over, and it was time to head to Edinburgh! More to come...

That little spot on my camera won't go away.. help