Graz week 6
Day 73
Tuesday 13Oct
1330(14 Oct)
I’m getting snowed on, great for a hangover. The sun is out thetre’s a few clouds yet I’m getting snowed on. It’s not even that cold. I’m now sitting on the tram with a bunch of kids they look no older then maybe 10 yet I cant understand what they’re saying. This gives an illusion of real intelligence, and it feels like I’m surrounded by a heap of adults stuck in some kids bodies. There sitting here talking discussing different things which I can only assume to be quite intricate Austrian politics. One kids even talking on a mobile phone. It’s pretty funny.
I woke up yesterday to my alarm at 0730. Way too early considering I’d only got to bed 6 hours before after a massive weekend in Rome. I hit the shower. It was so so refreshing and by the time I got out martin was up too with some musili. It looked so good, yet I had some at work to eat so I originally declined his offers of a bowl. He insisted and I soon accepted. It was the best tasting musili in the world. With out exaggerating it was possibly the best food ever invented.
I was glad it was cold. As a result martin had decided to drive. Which was much much easier then catching the tram. Work was slow, nothing really happened of interest except lunch. Martin suggested we go and grab some Chinese at a place nearby, and went to invite our big boss Roland. This was a great idea, unfortunately he couldn’t make it, but he did insist on because it was my last day that the lunch was his shout.
I don’t know if typing on the trams is really helping me. In line with my obsession with efficiency I’m trying not to waste my time, yet I’m just dribblingand not really helping my cuase what so ever
I’m now sitting at martins’s waiting for my emergency credit card to be delivered. I’ve just had a shower and I feel clean, I’m sitting on his lounge in a towel because I really don’t want to put my clothes back on. It’s been a while since I’ve done washing and I’m not really sure how many days worth of wear the boxer shorts on the ground have had. In my defense Ioanna did say she’d wash my clothes for me on the weekend, which she didn’t so now I’ve got no clean clothes, I might have a clean shirt somewhere. I’m not sure.
DAMN. I just realized that even if this card does show up I have no identification… I better go back to where I’m staying and get my pass port. Damn it, I was so comfortable.
0850(15Oct)
At one point during the morning on Tuesday I went upto the bank to see if myy card had arrived. It’s pretty funny up there. I’ve been just withdrawing cash, and because they don’t have many loud Australian clients and it usually takes all 4 employees to work out what I’m trying to say they all know me. No sooner had I walked in the door when the youngest of the female bankers, a beautiful Austrian, stood up and walked towards me, it was her greeting which surprised me most. “Good morning Mr Harpley, what can I do for you today”. haha.
Tuesday at work finished off with out a titch. I just spent the day trying to catch up on my diary and sorting out accomodation etc. I wanted to leave at 1730. Kiki said she’d be ready at 1740. She was having a dilemma, she was writing a program to do with some sort of vapouriser and couldn’t decide which colour to make the input boxes. We ended up leaving at 1800.
On the way home we stopped at DM, kinda like price line in Australia. Kiki wanted to grab toothpaste. This simple task took her 25 minutes. I grabbed some deoderant and was standing in line to pay. There were two girls behind me, they looked about 18 or 19, they were giggling about something, but it was quite amusing. One of them would say something and they’de laugh. I found it quite amusing too so I joined them in their laughter. The tall one was getting quite embarrassed and was blushing a little.
The comments and laughter followed for the whole time we were in line. And they genuinely thought I could understand German. The kept laughing so when I got to the front of the line I put on the strongest Australian accent I could and said to the cashier. “G’day, how r ya?” the girls instantly went quiet,
After I’d paid for my stuff I was waiting for kiki, the girls left, while just smiling at me and the tall one turned around. She approached me and said something in German. I told here I didn’t speak deutch. She paused turned around and left.
We got back to Eheim and i was running well and truly late. Never the less I had a quick shower and grabbed what clean clothes were left out of my bag; 2 t-shirts and a pair of jox. Ioanna had said she was going to do washing on the weekend, but she hadn’t and as a result my 7 days worth of clothes had well and truly worn out there 7 days worth of cleanliness.
It was pretty cold too so I wore my hoodie and my trench coat and took off out the door. I stopped off on the way to my new hosts at a spar which is open late, and caught a connecting tram. The tram I wanted to get was passing me as I walked to the stop so I ran so that I could make it. I did just as the tram was stopping. It sat there for almost 10 more minutes so I’d run about 100 meters to no avail.
Again I was meeting my host at Neue Technik station, the third host I’d met here. I was a little early so I opened one of the beers while I waited for Miron. A Croatian guy who’s studying economics here. that’s when he’s not high I mean.
He met me at the station and led me to his house about 100m up the road. The place is pretty cool. Just a regular student house with 3 rooms. There’s 3 people there but Miron shares a room with his girlfriend. As a result I even had my own room!!
The room I was in is kinda like the family room, with a desk, a heap of couches a tv and every different console known to man. We sat down and opened a beer. He explained the house and told me that the following night I might be sharing the room. His girlfriend, eva’s, little sister was having problems with her boyfriend and might have been shifting out, making it that there was two of the room. I could deal with that.
Soon after I had to leave, I was having going away drinks at 830 at a bar not far from there. I didn’t leave Miron’s till 840. But I could hardly just walk in to my new hosts and leave. I ran most the way to the bar as both Martin and Anina had messaged me asking where I was. On running to the bar I got lost, and ended up losing what ever time I would have saved by hot footing it there instead of walking.
I’d decided to have the drinnks at “The down under” the Australian bar here. Incredibly lame I know, but sorta fitting. Everyone was late as they are, but by 1100 there was close to 20 of us there. A motley crew of work mates, IAESTE members and my former hosts. I had a really good time. I also ordered a Kangaroo steak. But I had ordered it to be cut up into little pieces so that we could share it. That illicitted a variety of different responses, some really liking it others not too sure.
Ioanna was insistant on not eating a poor innocent kangaroo. I explained to her that it was a pest and that if you wanted to look at it that way it was hardly as bad as eating the poor doe eyed baby lamb that she’d served me last week. Martin caught onto this and started Baa’ing at Ioanna. She eventually relented and ate the piece.

Day 74
Wednesday 14Oct
1000(15 Oct)
I’m having a good day today. I’m startiing to feel a bit sick, I’m really flemmy and I slept like crap and my throat’s killing me. Despite this I found a clean pair of jox in my bag, YESSS!!! I was ecstatic.
After going to the bakery for Breakfast I headed back to Mirons’s. Something wasn’t looking very familiar though and my key didn’t ffit in the door. I was in the wrong house. There’s two apparment houses in Graz that leave their front door open and just to annoy me they’re right next to each other.
I needed to get out to martin’s to wait for my credit card so I didn’t bother showering. I had no clean clothes anyway, and I wasn’t thinking very straight regardless. I grabbed my satchel with my computer, quickly introduced myself to the other housemate and left to catch the trams to martins.
I’d just had a shower, was sitting on the couch at martins when I realized I had no ID, there was no way they were going to let me sign for a credit card with no identification!! I put my dirty clothes back on, realizing how much my shirt from the previous night stank and stole some of martin’s Deoderant.
The round trip took about an hour and I was back at Martin’s by 1530. I grabbed some cereal as I was starving and opened the fridge to grab some milk. There was none, apple juice nad water would have to do. I then made a coffee and sat down to write in my diary. By 1700 I was feeling very very very average so I put my computer away and decided to have a gonk.
My phone rang just befor 5 it was martin saying he was 5 mins away. No worries I said and dropped the phone, thinking I should probably get up I fell back asleep. 2 minutes later I was awoken by the loudest most intrusive sounding bell I’d heard in my life. I picked up the phone on the wall and it was indeed martin. “can you let me in?” he asked. “How” I replied. We spent a good 30 seconds trying to work out how to open the door. It turned out the button which opened the door was the button you’d expect to disconnect the phone.
He came up and we dribbled s*** for a while. He’d been feeling so sick all day and had had meetings with different clients. I would laugh at him if my head didn’t explode every time I blinked my eyelids.
I still hadn’t received my card so I rang up MasterCard international. They checked their records which said that the card had already been delivered. I hadn’t signed for it so I knew this to be false. They told me to check my mailbox. Lucky I’d seen martin check his mail the day before hand and I knew where to check it. My card was in there. So much for having to sign for it.
I went back upstairs and martin returned from his parents house with a couple of packages. I thought he’d brought home pizza and was semi disappointed when I found out it was a package from Amazon. This disappointment was relieved when I realized inside the package was the box set of the first few seasons of 2 and a half men.
We weren’t feeling like socializing much so we threw on an episode or 4. At about 1830 one of Martin’s friends showed up and martin put on some pasta to go with the bolognaise sauce his mum had made for him. It was really good. And myself and martins Italian friend, who hardly spoke English, sat around his table shoveling food into our faces. A combination of martin’s and my ill health combined with the friends sub par English made table talk almost non existant.
Soon after we returned to the TV, how social of us and at 8 Martin drove me around to Eheim, to grab some stuff from Ioanna’s room and then he dropped me back at Miron’s. I was super appreciative of this, it saved me an hour of sitting in trams getting myself around town.
Back at Miron’s I was a zombie. I sat talking to him for a bit while he played soccer on his PS2. One of his friends joined him, another Croatian I think, and they started talking in Croatian. I grabbed out my diary and tried to peg a little more away at it.
At about 915 his friend left and Miron said they were going to watch a movie. At first this sounded good, but that was before I fell asleep on the couch, I realized I should probably go to bed. I did so not long after and although having a fairly restless night I lay in bed for almost 12 hours.