GRAZ, AUSTRIA--This past weekend I surfed a couch in Graz. If you have no idea what this, click on the title, "Couchsurfing," and you will be directed to the website. Basically, it's a global networking site for travelers. If people have a couch or extra bed available, they offer it to people for free. It's a great way to travel on the cheap, but has also turned into a way to meet people.
I stayed with Sophie and her fiance, David. They're originally from France. She's in gastronomy (food science) and was tired of working in Paris, so they moved to Graz. It was a great experience from the beginning. I arrived in Graz on Friday around noon. After a day of hiking around the city, I simply called Sophie to see if they were home. They were, so I came over after having Schweinebraten mit Knödel und Sauerkraut and a Wieselburger (pork, kanoodle, sauerkraut with a beer) at a typical Austrian restaurant.
They had a big, beautiful apartment in the city center. I had my own bed and my own room. Both of them were really helpful and generous. Sophie loves to cook, so I joined in on a few delicious meals. Friday night I went to a pub with them and met some of their friends. Saturday morning, we went together to the daily market and they continued to show me around the old part of the city. Before we parted ways so that I could do more sightseeing, we stopped by a cafe. It was so nice that day, we sat outside.
The day before was just as warm and sunny. My first day, before meeting up with Sophie and David, I walked up the Schlossberg (literally: Castle Mountain). It is a wooded hill with parks, a cafe and a large clock tower. There are different ways to reach the top. There are winding paths, a lift and a staircase (also a tunnel through it with many passage ways, used during the World Wars as a bomb shelter which could hold 50,000 people. Now is a pedestrian walkway and even has a concert venue inside). I walked up the steps after jumping the fence (closed during winter). The stairs were carved out of the rock by war prisoners in WWI. I traveled by myself this trip, which I really enjoyed. Although I did find the downside: no one to share it with. The views from the Schlossberg were amazing, and I couldn't help but want to share it with somebody. I called a friend in Grand Rapids, but he didn't answer. I then called my parents and they answered. I just felt like I had to describe what I was seeing. It was early February and it looked like Spring in Graz. Trees were beginning to bud. I had a clear view of the town and the surrounding mountains. Lots of locals were hanging out at the top, listening to music, reading, hanging out.
Saturday night I met Sophie, David and some friends at a pub, where they were watching the France-Ireland rugby match. There, I met a guy my age who they met through Couch surfing too. He was staying at hotels, but used it to meet people because he was doing a long tour of Europe by himself. He's from New York where his family operates a bakery. He's going around Europe, temporarily working at bakeries to learn how to make the different breads. Basically, the life I wish I had. I'm obsessed with good bread and pastries. If I could make them myself, I'd be pretty happy.
After the game (France lost), we went back to the apartment. They invited some friends over and we ate pizza, drank some beer and talked. They all spoke French, but were nice enough to mostly speak English. It was a lot of fun. They're friends were really interesting. After pizza, Sophie brought out about 8 tubs of ice-cream she made at work with left-over fruit. She had banana, raspberry, kiwi, lemon, mango, etc. All made purely from cream, fresh fruit and sugar. They were all delicious. Banana and kiwi were my favorite.
After desert, we played Wii. I had only played a couple times, but this time convinced me that I had to get one for myself. The games they had were awesome. It was funny seeing everyone getting up and trying to do them. One of the couples was really funny. The guy was from Belgium and the girl was from Bulgaria. The woman was doing really bad at a Guitar Hero type game and her husband was making fun of her. Then she exclaimed, "It's not my fault! I grew up in a communist country!"
Sunday was unfortunately rainy, windy and cold. Sophie was a bit surprised that I was going leave and do some more exploring before I got on my train in the afternoon. I'm glad I decided to brave the weather. I took a tram outside of Graz to the Mariatrost Basilica and then was able to take the same tram to the opposite side of Graz and see the Schloss Eggenberg (Eggengerg Palace). It only cost one Euro to explore the grounds and the halls of the Palace. Strangly, while walking down the long entrance to the palace in the cold, wet gusts of wind, I saw a male peacock. And then when I reached the palace, there was a huge group of peacocks huddled around the building and inside. I think this would have been less odd if it was summer. I hope I get the opportunity to come back here during the summer. Even in winter, I could tell that the gardens would be awesome in the summer.
I liked Graz a lot. It reminded me of Grand Rapids -- big enough to have everything you need, but small enough to have a relaxed atmosphere. It is easy to walk almost anywhere you want to go, but the street cars work great too. About 240,000 residents, and has about 44,000 students (meaning it has a decent night-life). Definitely a huge difference from Vienna which is about 2 Million people.
The train ride back to Vienna was only 2.5 hours. The short travel time allowed my to be able to join Erlach's (Johannes' family) for dinner for the second time. My friend, Amy (also from Grand Valley), now lives with them, which is cool since they live one Ubahn station down from me. As always, it was delicious. This time Daniella brought out a big wooden plate with different sliced meats, smoked sausage, fresh horseradish, onions, pickles, a smoky fat spread, many different cheeses and slices of hardboiled eggs. We ate all of this with bread. It's a very social type of meal. They told us about their week-long ski trip in Tirol. Their pictures made me determined to go skiing soon. Desert was equally delicious. It was crumbles of what tasted like pancake with raisins and powdered sugar. Then, we each had a bowl of a cinnamonny, sweet sauce with peach halves in it for eating and dipping. I'm going to have Philipp, my host/roommate teach me how to make it. He's a great cook, and I like flipping through his huge Austrian desert cookbook. And he's totally willing to show me how to make them. So I guess my next two goals are to ski in the Austrian Alps and make lots of Austrian deserts.
Pictures from top to bottom: The Murinsel (Mur Island), Mariahilferkirche (Mariahilfer Church), steps up the Schlossberg, locals smoking at the top of Schlossberg, Eggenberg Palace, statue with Mariatrost Basilica in the background, view of Graz from Schlossberg, tunnel through Schlossberg, view of the Cathedral from a palace tower, Mausoleum, back of the Mausoleum at night, peacocks outside Eggenberg Palace, peacocks in Eggenberg Palace, stone floor of the square inside Eggenberg Palace.
They had a big, beautiful apartment in the city center. I had my own bed and my own room. Both of them were really helpful and generous. Sophie loves to cook, so I joined in on a few delicious meals. Friday night I went to a pub with them and met some of their friends. Saturday morning, we went together to the daily market and they continued to show me around the old part of the city. Before we parted ways so that I could do more sightseeing, we stopped by a cafe. It was so nice that day, we sat outside.
The day before was just as warm and sunny. My first day, before meeting up with Sophie and David, I walked up the Schlossberg (literally: Castle Mountain). It is a wooded hill with parks, a cafe and a large clock tower. There are different ways to reach the top. There are winding paths, a lift and a staircase (also a tunnel through it with many passage ways, used during the World Wars as a bomb shelter which could hold 50,000 people. Now is a pedestrian walkway and even has a concert venue inside). I walked up the steps after jumping the fence (closed during winter). The stairs were carved out of the rock by war prisoners in WWI. I traveled by myself this trip, which I really enjoyed. Although I did find the downside: no one to share it with. The views from the Schlossberg were amazing, and I couldn't help but want to share it with somebody. I called a friend in Grand Rapids, but he didn't answer. I then called my parents and they answered. I just felt like I had to describe what I was seeing. It was early February and it looked like Spring in Graz. Trees were beginning to bud. I had a clear view of the town and the surrounding mountains. Lots of locals were hanging out at the top, listening to music, reading, hanging out.
Sunday was unfortunately rainy, windy and cold. Sophie was a bit surprised that I was going leave and do some more exploring before I got on my train in the afternoon. I'm glad I decided to brave the weather. I took a tram outside of Graz to the Mariatrost Basilica and then was able to take the same tram to the opposite side of Graz and see the Schloss Eggenberg (Eggengerg Palace). It only cost one Euro to explore the grounds and the halls of the Palace. Strangly, while walking down the long entrance to the palace in the cold, wet gusts of wind, I saw a male peacock. And then when I reached the palace, there was a huge group of peacocks huddled around the building and inside. I think this would have been less odd if it was summer. I hope I get the opportunity to come back here during the summer. Even in winter, I could tell that the gardens would be awesome in the summer.
To top off the trip, we did a tourist-must: The Sound of Music Tour. It's four hours long, but surprisingly really cool. It ended up being just us and two others on the huge tourbus with the driver and eccentric tour-guide (she dressed in typical male Austrian dress; green feathered hat and all). It takes you to all the places filmed in the movie and explains what/where/when/how things happened in the real-life occurences of the Von Trapps. It even goes up into the mountains and stops to show the great views (that yes, were filmed in the movie). For an hour we were able to walk around Mondsee, which is a small, old town up in the mountains. Totally tourist-oriented, and probably miserable during tourist season, but we had a great time.
Also this week our group took a tour of the United Nations headquarters in Vienna. It is one of the four main UN headquarters in the world (New York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi). We had a guided tour, followed by two speakers who talked to us about different functions of the UN. One of the speakers was a woman from the states who worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). She walked us through the control of atomic energy and weapons from it's conception to now. We were able to discuss the situation with WMD's in Iraq, the problems with North Korea and the recent bizzar happenings between Syria and Isreal. Isreal had bombed a nuclear facility in Syria, but for a while neither Syria nor Isreal were talking about it. Syria wanted to keep their unautorized nuclear facilities "hush-hush."
When I arrived in Frankfurt, I met up with two girls from my study abroad program. We were waiting to take our short flight from Frankfurt to Vienna. When we arrived in Vienna, it was surprisingly easy to figure out the bus system and and eventually navigate the streets to the hotel where we would spend our first night. There were about seven people there when we arrived. Immediately after I sat my bags down in my room, we went out to find a place to grab a drink.
