Day 16, August 5th, 09. Dublin, Ireland

Up at 4:45 to catch the 7:05 flight from Prestwick to Dublin. I was stressing out about my bags, because Ryan Air has a very strict policy of 1 carry on bag, so if you have a purse or something, that's it, that's all you get, the rest had to be checked. So, I worked my bag into a puzzle and it was still under the 15kg that was the max for the checked luggage (actually 15.2kg, but they let it pass). So because of these limits, I wrapped my Hard Rock Cafe glasses in foam, that I brought along with me, and packed them nice a tight. That might have been the problem. It wasn't until 7 hours later, and after the flight of course, that I found the Munich glass shattered. I was so sad, damn it!!!!! The other 2 were fine, next flight from London, they are going on in with me in a separate bag, like I was able to do on Easy Jet from Paris to Edinburgh, grrr.

Well... after a car, plane and a bus, I'm in a new city, Dublin! The sun is shinning, the hostel is awesome and I'm ready to hit the city and take my tour of Guinness! When I made my reservations, this was one hostel that had tours your could buy, so I did. A on/off bus tour of the city w/ tour guides, the Guinness Storehouse and a tour of the country side (tomorrow's outing).

So I did the whole bus tour 1st, the lady was hard to hear, but I snapped some pics and will try to remember what they are of. Then I decided to hit Hard Rock Cafe! One of the stopping places on the bus was very close. So I had lunch and then... much to my embarrassment, dunt dun dun... I left my credit card at the hostel. Because Ireland uses Euros, I was down to 5 euros in cash and 10 on my debit card thingy, I had started to use the other card that was pounds... oh crap! Ok, no problem, I have the All Access Card with HRC and I get points for my purchases, I haven't redeemed by points recently, so I'll just pay for it that way. Well, would I be telling this story if it was that easy? This is one HRC that doesn't honor the All Access Card, frick! So I had to walk back to my hostel and get my card. I left my debit card and my camera with them, they were cool about it and knew I'd be back. I was able to get that done, but I was cutting my time close with the Guinness tour, so I'd have to go back to buy my shirts and stuff. I hopped on the bus again and got to the Guinness stop, last bus and there would be no bus to pick me up, oh well, it is what it is! Got there about 6:30 and the last admission was at 7! Good thing, because I found out, I had a reservation for today, yikes.

The Guinness Storehouse is pretty much just a museum, but it was cool. The entire building is like 7 floors and if you look up when you 1st start the tour, you will see that it is shaped as a gigantic pint glass, very cool! Of course I got pictures. It was much different then Budweiser in St. Louis, but interesting. At the very top is a room called the Gravity Bar and it overlooked the city! And your ticket in got you a free pint to try it out, yumm. It really does taste better here, not bitter at all. I met a guy from Poland here too, his wife went to Riverdance and he got to come to Guinness. We helped each other with some pictures and then walked out together, it was really quiet since it was late and the bus driver told me it was really dangerous... haha! So I walked with the polish guy for a bit, then quickly got to the Temple Bar area to go back to Hard Rock. HRC solved, then got on a city bus back to my hostel area and walked up the street.

Tomorrow, as I mentioned, the country side!!! whoo hoo