Saturday June 16
I woke up at 5am to catch the 6am train to Graz (I think it’s the same train I took to Vienna a week ago, and it was stupid that I spent 3.50 euro to reserve it because it was half empty). I managed to arrive in Graz on time at 8:38am and decided to wander the train station a bit before Johannes from IAESTE arrives. It was here where I had my first experience of a paid bathroom. In order to enter the washroom area you have to go through a sort of money gate and the cost is 50 cents euro per use. So I rendered my 50 cents coin into the machine and went inside. It was a very clean bathroom (later I found out that the money is totally worth it as the bathrooms on the train is just absolutely gross…). After my little bathroom break, I wandered into the SPAR supermarket at the train station and got fascinated by the Milka displays. There were also merci chocolate and I think I’ve had those when I was a kid in HK (will verify with parents later) something that I’m unfamiliar with in Canada. Anyways, then I found a Mcdonalds and decided to try some Austrian Mcdonald breakfast. Again I had difficulties ordering and the lady kept on asking me questions. I ordered a Wien Frushtuck (Viennese breakfast) – which got me 2 croissants a lot of jams and butter and also a drink. I asked for an “Apfelsaft” but they gave me orange instead. Oh well… at least the croissants were freshly baked and they were yummy.
Johannes showed up and we went to the park just outside the train station to wait for the rest of the party. I met another Johannes (graduate from mech eng) from IAESTE (whose place I ended up having to crash at, as he had 2 other housemates, and they were not around, so I got to use Martin’s room for the night). Thomas from IAESTE also, a PHD student in Chem eng, who happened to have done an IAESTE exchange in Toronto at U of T on the 4th floor of WB in the Pulp and Paper lab under the supervision of a Dr. Tang (Japanese) 3 years ago. So that was really cool when we started talking about Toronto. Then there were a bunch of other Trainees that I met: Alicija from Poland who studies electronics and is working for the electronic company of her dreams since September and will now take up a contract for full time since she has finished school; Emir from Norway who is new in town (only been here for 4 days) and started his work in a mechanical engineering placement in a lab at the technical university in Graz, staying until august; Nevena from Bosnia, who has been here for a month and working for a company and her background is in computer science; there was also a guy named Eddy who is from HK’s Polytechnic U studying Physics and working for another electronic company in a little town called Deutschlandberg, about an hour from Graz.
So the 8 of us took two cars and headed for a 2 hour journey out to the north east of Graz (which I fell asleep most of the way over) to a mountain called Reichenstein for “hiking”. Apparently, Austria calls Mountain Hiking – Hiking, it was a painful “walk”, more like a climb, up the mountain as I was not equipped with the right gear (I miss my hiking shoes!!! I’ll never go hiking without them again). So with my puma shoes, I felt every rock that I stepped on and was really afraid of slipping and rolling off the mountain (there were spots that were super steep). Not to mention that I was not in any good physical shape, it was really difficult to get up to the top. The guys from IAESTE also has this thing about telling us “It’s only going to be another 10 minutes” to keep the motivation going. It was a bit silly but funny at the same time.
So after 2 and a half hours, and a lot of hard work, and also taking a normal route as supposed to the advanced route, because of our shoes (there was a mountain nazi guy who came and said we would be arrested if we were seen with those kind of shoes on on the mountain, we finally reached the hutte ( or cottage) at the top of the mountain. There, we took a nice break, I ate a knodel mit wurstel (some dumpling thing with sausage and kraut (cabbage)), tried to play the local cards game and chilled for about 1.5 until the rain went away. (yes, it started raining) Once the rain went away, the group climbed up to the peak of the mountain. We then began our descent. The descent was difficult for me and Eddy as our shoes really weren’t able to hold us up. My philosophy, from my previous exp in hiking, climbing, whatever experience I had with SJA, told me that as long as I’m willing to get my hands dirty and stay low, I should be Okay. Hence I took my time and really clinged onto the mountain side. We were about ¼ of the way down when it started to rain again, and the paths became really difficult to walk in. It was difficult with rocks and extremely dangerous without the rocks. Puddles, mud slides were not doing us well. A little while longer, the Johannes whose place I will be staying at offered to let me hang on to his backpack, and this really helped save my life a few times. I was sliding down, my ankles were killing me (since no support) turning at weird angles as I try to maintain my balance. I slid a few times and it was not very pretty.. We finally reached the bottom of the mountain about 6 or 7 and we were soaking wet.
There, we warmed up and had soup ( a French onion kind that was a bit too salty) and Johannes took some videos of us, like testimonies. The group decided to drive back to Graz and regroup for the night for some parties. (later on, I realized that I really should’ve checked my ipod, as I have completely forgotten that it could get wet too because that case is not waterproof… ><)
Anyways, Johannes live in a very nice apartment on the ground floor with very spacious hallways. There are 3 rooms in the house and the way the bathroom is set up is kind of strange. The toilette area is separate to the shower+ sink area. (apparently this was the norm, as I saw a similar set up at Alicija’s). I took a nice warm shower and then began to clean up my shoes (they were soo gross and mud drenched). Johannes made Spinnach spaztle with some sort of a paste thing and we got ready to go to the party. I had to borrow his flipflops so I don’t have to wear my gross shoes and head to Alicija’s and borrow her shoes.
Johannes took his bike and I sat at the back. So talk about having first times, I think this was the very first time that I sat at the back of someone’s bike. It was quite exciting and I was impressed that Johannes still had so much energy. As I was wearing flip flops, it was also difficult to keep them on my feet, I came close to losing them a few times. Graz at night was very well lit and beautiful, a lively city full of students. We went through the city and to this pub (Johannes kept on talking and telling me about the places, but I was more concentrated on hanging on than listening). We went to this pub to pick up some of Johannes’ friends (Martin and Thomas who also happened to be the inhabitant of the house, and Martin – was the Iaeste President of Graz who I’ve been in contact with before). We then headed over to Alicija’s and after to the Party.
This club’s cover was 5 euro each and the process to get in is extremely lax compared to Toronto clubs. IT was Balkavian music night (and there was another room that played brazilian music). The music was really interesting, and there was also some gypsie music. I have never heard the music before so it took awhile for me to warm up before I got onto the dance floor (well also needed to wait until it was a bit more crowded). I had a beer for 2.70 and it was a Murauer beer, native to Styria, the province in which Graz belongs to. The rest of the trainees showed up including a girl named Stephanie from Switzerland. We danced until about 2am when Johannes decided that we should leave. (the rest of them stayed until 5am, don’t know how they did it)
Sunday June 17
When we got back to Johannes’s place that night, I found the snail without shell that Martin was talking about crawling on his wall. It was at least 10cm long and it was really gross looking. They were telling me that they need Indian geese to eat these stuff and control their breeding in Austria, but it might take another 10 years before they will get here.
On Sunday, I woke up at about 11am to Johannes’ weird music in the kitchen. I know he has company over at 11:30 am and figured that it’s best I wake up before then to get ready. I managed to get all changed and just had to brush my teeth when the company showed up. It was his friend Sarah and Paul and their kid Moritz who will be 1 in a week. They are to be married in 2 weeks and Johannes is to be Paul’s best man. We had a very full breakfast with lots of food served, Johannes was such a great host – Yogurt that comes in a jar, fried eggs, baked beans, pepper and tomato, 3 kinds of cheese, butter and bread, sundried tomatos, jams of a lot of variety, smoked salmon and ham, and they were drinking champagne for breakfast!
After a big Brunch – yes I guess it was more brunch than anything, I headed out to meet the other Johannes and Eddy (who stayed with the other Johannes). We met up with Martin and began our walk around the city. We went up the Schlossberg hill which used to be a Castle that had a very strong fort. When Napolean invaded Graz he was unable to conquer the Castle, so when he signed the peace treaty, he orderd the Castle to be destroyed because it was such an insult to him. So the castle was demolished and all that remained was a bell tower and a clock tower. So we climbed, yes climbed.. I felt like I was dead.. up to the top of the hill and sat at the café for coffee. It was a breathtaking view of the city of Graz with a lot of red rooftops and historic buildings. I was told that it had the largest network of red rooftops and hence deemed a world heritage city. Across the river of Mur, Graz is a much more modern city, and the buildings are much newer. This was because it was the bomb target in the war and most of the old buildings were destroyed as it was the industrial area. The clock tower was beautiful too and the long hand was actually the hour hand and the short one was the minute hand and added on much later. We enjoyed our drinks and then headed back down into the city by the stairs. We walked by the parliament house, landhaus which was built in the 14th century, past the amoury area (which I remember Sherlie highly recommended me to go in, but there was no time), ate ice cream and visited the church and kunthaus (space like sea slug, was what lonely planet called it, a modern art museum).
After that, we walked back to the city park and sat at another café where I had a very good mango juice with water “ Mango saft mit wasser”. We talked a bit more about accents, about Iaeste Austria’s set up and maybe we need something like that in Canada, and about my trip plans, Venice or Krakow (Venice won) and things like that. We saw Alicija and I was going to give her her shoes back and it was at that point when I realized I had left them at the café up the hill. Luckily there was still time before I had to catch my train, and so Martin walked me up to the castle again for a 2nd time. This was so hard.. >< style=""> Luckily the shoes are still there, and I managed to get to the train station for 6pm. On my way there, I ran into Emir on the tram and we said our good byes.
It was on the train when I took out my ipod that I realized there was water trapped between the case and the ipod itself. >< style=""> So I quickly took it out of the case and wiped the water off. It was completely non-responsive and knowing better, I left it as is and decided to go home and look up what I can do to save it. It’s still under warranty as I’ve only had it for less than a month but it might be painful to find a service provider in Europe. I really want to be able to use it for my trips, especially this one to Florence this weekend ><. Right now, I’ve taken it out of the case, and let it sit near the stove to dry it up. Hopefully any remaining moisture inside will be dried up. Soaked ipods have been fixed before, and mine doesn’t even count as being soaked.. just water leaked into the jets probably. Keeping my fingers crossed for the better. If not, I think I might have to take a day off work to go to Vienna and visit their ipod store and try to get it fixed under warranty ><
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