A YEAR IN MY LIFE ( or 3 ): Amazing Violinists

This summer i had the pleasure of having two very amazing violinists stay with me for a month and a half! I met Agnes and Mateo 2 years ago when they were here in Dublin, busking on Grafton Street. They are both music students in Poland and when they finish this year, they will have their Master's. At the moment, they are finishing up a 5 month stay in Brussels at a very prestigious music school. They have just informed me that they might stay on for another two years there. We always kept in touch, wanting to meet up again, so this summer was the perfect opportunity. They stayed with me and continued to busk on Grafton street. They made the newspaper a few times, paper and on-line, were asked if they wanted to record a CD and even got asked to play at a wedding!

Me, Agnes and Mateo 2 years ago!

Busking on Grafton in front of Brown Thomas

Relaxing in the backyard. And this is supposed to be July?!?!

Hiking up in the mountains in Glendolough

Mateo's violin case

Sometimes in the evenings, Agnes and Mateo would play in my living room or when friends were over. My neighbors loved this and would open their windows to hear them. When they were here 2 years ago, we had a party in the back yard and i was told that when they played, my neighbor grabbed a glass of wine and sat in her back yard listening! She was thrilled that they were back again this summer.

Agnes and Mateo had never had lobster, so as a treat (they paid, i cooked) we went off to Howth to pick up lobster and Sea Bass. The fish monger handed Mateo the live lobster in a plastic bag. There was no way he was going to sit in the car with them on his lap so they went in the boot with their violins! Then in the bathtub until it was time to get cooking. Tinsel kept checking them out. We had a very fun evening but Agnes wouldn't eat the lobster!

Mateo peeking at the lobster

Ah......cooked

Sea Bass

It was a pretty cold and wet summer and the staff at Pasta Fresca were very kind to them, letting them sit out of the rain for hours drinking coffee on the house and the occasional meal! So to say thank you, they played there on their last night and we got free pizzas!