Dublin! Day 3

In the morning, Catherine and Sarah both had rehearsals and Caoimhin was working, so I had another morning to wander the city and see some more tourist attractions. I started off the morning with an Irish breakfast, complete with black pudding. Then I walked around Dublin Castle (above) for a while.
Next, I went to Christ Church Cathedral, which was beautiful! The picture above was from after I had already been inside (when I first got there it was cold and rainy). Right next to the Cathedral is a museum called Dubliana, which was about the early history of Dublin. It was designed more for children, but I really liked it! It was fun to see the progression from being a Viking settlement to a thriving city. I also learned that the gardens at the Dublin Castle used to be a lake where the first Vikings landed. The reason that the gardens are there is because the ground is too soft to build on.
Walking down the street from the Cathedral, I passed a very old looking church and decided to walk in and check it out. It turned out to be St. Auden's Church, and is one of the older churches in Ireland. The chapel was really nice, and they have a "lucky stone" in the back by the bell tower. Apparently, the stone has been removed from the church several times, but has always somehow made its way back.

The chamber orchestra at the academy of music didn't have a bass player, so in the afternoon I played for the rehearsal. We played Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings, which was so much fun! It was great to play with a chamber orchestra again. The only bow that we could borrow was a French bow, and I play with a German bow (they require completely different bow holds). The first part of the rehearsal I spent just trying not to drop the bow!
After the rehearsal, Caoimhin picked us up and we drove to the concert hall to try and get student rush tickets for the National Symphony Orchestra concert that night. We got there just in time, and sat down as they were closing the doors. The opening piece was Brahms Tragic Overture, and then they played the Dvorak Violin Concerto. The soloist was Arabella Steinbacher, who was amazing! During the last movement, there was a loud snap, and I looked up just in time to catch Arabella Steinbacher trading violins with the concertmaster. One of her strings had snapped, and she played the rest of the concert on the borrowed violin! The concertmaster handed the now three-stringed violin back into the section until the last stand got it, and sat with it until the end of the piece. It was so amazing that she was able to adapt to a new instrument in mere seconds! The last piece they played was Beethoven Symphony No. 7, and the trumpets were using natural trumpets (meaning that they have no valves) which was fun to listen to since I'm so used to hearing it played with modern trumpets. The picture above was taken at intermission when I realized that I didn't have any pictures of people from my trip yet! (in the picture from left to right is Caoimhin, Catherine, me, and Sarah).

That night we went to a house that had been converted into a jazz club. It was really fun, they had different acts playing in the larger living room throughout the night. Someone told me that before we got there, someone played a set in the large bathroom upstairs. The first act we saw was a very modern free jazz group that was interesting... and then we stayed for a funk group that was really great. It was cool to see that there was this kind of enthusiasm for new music. We didn't stay too long because we had all had very long days.