Day 46
Wednesday 16Sept
1017(17Sept)
Yesterday was good, I woke up at 8 and went for a run. I ran up the Schlossburg, much better in theory then in practice, the last part was really really hard. The mountain is 473m above sea level and graz is 353 so it was a lizy 120m stair climb! My calves were hating me yesterday. Nevertheless the punishment from that morning and the night befor left me feeling good! The sleep of more the 3 hours helped too.
I got to work easily on time and grabbed breakfast. I've sort taken over a section of the kitchen here with my own food, its easier then buying food whenever I go somewhere. The day went kinda slow yesterday was uneventful. I worked on my diary, my blog and started some new work for martin.
I'm really enjoying the little bits and pieces of work martin is giving me to do, there interesting and short, so I dont get bored. This one that i'm working now is researching methods and an approach to testing the feasability of an adaptive coating for car gearboxes. I spent most of yesterday just reasearching, but i'm starting to get some plans and ideas, and it's really satisfying.
Martin left a bit after lunch, he's going on a holiday with his family to northern Italy. So I was left in the office to do my thing, There's a guy here who's recovering from a broken collarbone, he does a lot of work on the test benchs and the plan was for me to assist him. He hardly speaks any english and I bump into him all the time but he just smiles and nods at me, funny guy.
I spent the arvo working on the reaserch for martin and then went home a bit late at 530. On the way home I went shopping for the stuff for dinner. It takes me ages trying to work out wwhats what, I wasn't sure if I was buying tomato paste or bolognaise sauce, so I just grabbed a few different jars with picturese of tomatoes and basil on them. The other customers were looking at me funny as I was just picking up different cheeses and smelling them trying to find some parmasan.
When I got home I went for another run, a bit shorter, I just went to the park less then 300m from where i'm staying did some push ups and, on the way home, managed to get lost.
After i'd stuffed around at home, doing not much, I left to go cook at the girls' house. I jumped started walking to get the tram and a bus drove past with my destination written on it. I ran about 150 m to get it and was a ball of sweat. It was so humid last night, not hot just sticky, luckily the bus was over airconditioned.
I got on the Tram from Jakominiplatz and sat down. I had my earphones on but I still managed to hear christine say hello. It was good, I was planning on trying to write in my diary, but the converstaion was much more interesting.
At the Girls place I was meeting Anina, a swiss trainee who'd I'd only met once, who was joining us for tea. As I walking upto the door I noticed someone locking there bike, I wasn't sure if it was her so kinda ignored her, luckily she reckognised me befor i'd totally committed to walking past her otherwise it could have been awkward.
We went upto Hristina's room, I had no idea where any of the other girls rooms was and she answered her door rather sheepishly just peeking out wrapped in a towel, I excused myself and just asked where Ioanna's room was. We went up stairs to there and she wasn't there so we sat in the common room for a while.
Anina is quite nice, easy to talk to, just a bit of a goodie goodie I guess, not in a good way just in an anti-fun way. She kinda sounds like she went to a really posche all girls school or something. Nice enough.... she's just like a living anti climax. Leaving early because of work the next day etc etc.
She was really fun to talk to though, she lived in alaska for a while and her english is very good, probably better then mine and she understands everything I say, even most slangs and sarcasm's which usually go over the girls heads, and I could actually relax while talking to her rather then having to concentrate on simplifying my speech. She helped me cook which was good, and we were talking so freely that Ionna left us alone assuming there was something going on between us. Which there wasn't of course, she's so chaste i'd be surprised if she'd even held the hand of one of the boys from her choir practise.
The girls thought it was hilarious having 'the man' cook for them, I guess it's not only women with there terrible directions, hardly impecible timings, that are the same all over the world but men also.
We sat in one of the common rooms and ate, the spag bol came out really well, I was really happy with it, as were the girls. You'de think sitting there at the table with 4 girls, 1 greek, 2 macedonians and a Swiss, would be great, but to be honest I wish there were a few more blokes here, I guess it's a similar thing to the bus trip.
We ate while Hristina was glued to the TV screen, barcelona was playing int and she didn't say a word all dinner. After dinner sandra bought down some sangria she'd made, she lived in barcelona for 6 months previously and is in love with anything spanish. The sangria was good, although it took me ages to work out how to get all the juice in the ladle with out it filling up.
We got to 3 monkeys at about2, the karaoke was actually really good. With quite a few guys and girls getting up theree who can sing quite well. The decent set up would have helped too rather then the portable crappy ones.
We ended up leaving at about 430 and I grabbed a cab home. I reset my alarm. For some reason I thought that because I start work at 9 that I should set my alarm for 9.
Its taken me 3 and a bit hours to write this entry, between coffee lunch and skype its dragging on!! I better do some work soon.

Day 47
Thursday 17Sept
1800(18Sept)
I got to work at 930, and grabbed some cereal, I was so hungary. I spent the morning writing in my diary and on skype, efficient worker yeah. But martin hadn’t left me much to do, I’ll finish it off tomorrow. I’msupposed to be working with a guy called Rheiny on a test bench but they’re having issues, so as a result there was no work for me to do today.
I went for lunch at 1130 with the girls and it was a pretty crap so later in the arvo we went and grabbed hamburgers from a place up the road they were the biggest, in diameter, I’ve ever seen, they took up almost the whole dinner plate. Sandra joined us, she’s leaving tonight and was a little teary, I thought I’d leave the girls alone and went back to the office.
I think today will be my shortest entry yet.
1030(18Sept)
At home Mischa had to leave early, he explained that some other couch surfers were coming at some point and if the door bell rings to just let them in. I said “ok no worries…. Ah do they speak English” he just looked up and said “ah I dunno, maybe” haha. They did eventually arrive but one of the other house mates was here by then and let them in. I introduced myself just as I was leaving.
left home at 1910, I was supposed to be meeting the girls at Eheim at 19. I walked out the front door to jump on my bike and it was pouring! Luckily my raincoat was in my bag. I walked over to my bikee and pumped the tyre up, either I keep martins pump in my bag or I buy a tyre. There’s a vending machine here at the uni which sells bike tubes so I might have to give that a crack.
I got satched on the way over to Eheim, stopping momentarily to get some beers. When I got there neither Kiki nor Ionna were in their rooms. So I called Sandra, she was still packing so I told her I’d wait in the common room for her. I went in there dripping wet and the two people sitting on the couch just stared at me.
I sat down and asked how the were. One of them coldly said fine… and that was it. They were watching some quiz show that was in German. I asked him to translate for me, I didn’t think they were speaking german but I think they understood it. He tried but both German and English weren’t his first languages so going from one to the other was hard, they pretty much just completely ignored me for the rest of the time I was in there. I was pretty sure they were French, I’m not sure if I made that assumption coz of there accent or because they were w***ers. Turns out that they were from croatia, so France was way off.
I called Ioanna, she was still at work, I said I was at Eheim with some beers to which she said “oh I didn’t know we were meeting at eheim I’m meeting the girls at the train station”. I said “remember how I said I’d meet you girls for beers at Eheim befor Sandra left?” and she said “Yes” I said “well Sandra’s about to leave” and she goes “Ohhhhh”. the penny had dropped, Ioanna is an absolute crack up, the epitome of a space cadet.
Eventually Kiki and Sandra joined me and we had a beer and some chips befor heading upto Sandra’s room to help her carry her stuff out. I did the man thing and carried the heavy bag while the girls juggled the rest of Sandra’s crap. I walked them to the tram stop. I wasn’t going to the train station so I jumped on my bike and headed into town.
I got to the AAC stamtisch at about 2120 sat down and ordered a beer. Everyone in there is a bit older then me and holy s*** they make me feel dumb, they were talking about history for a while, I just assumed Napolean was killed when he was defeated at waterloo not stuck on an island somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
I chatted to them all for a bit befor heading home. At home one of the other housemates, who turned out to be Mischa’s brother, had a few friends over and they were sitting in there room with the other german couch surfers I pulled up a swiss ball and they gave me a warm beer, drinking warm beer is a skill I‘ve learnt while in this continent. They continued talking. Its suprising how close you can get to understanding another language just by how the people act, the tone and speed of there voice and their body language. I’d had a couple of beers and was kinda just inventing conversation as I went along, It was cracking me up and I was laughing whenever they were and paying close attention to whoever was talking.
I laughed at one point and every one just looked at me, I don’t think it was an appropriate time to laugh. I explained that I couldn’t understand them and was just making up my own conversation. They thought this was hilarious and they honestly thought that I could understand German. Conversation quickly turned to English which was good, I hardly expect people to speak in English in a german speaking country just because I’m around, but it is helpful and at least that way I can input into the conversation.
I ended up crashing, again hard, at 1130, the area where I’m staying was right next to the open door to where they were all drinking, this was no matter and I slept right through it.