On the first day he sat down for a beer, and it was good

Yes, after an adventure filled day of traveling, we rested well at our apartment. On the first day in Graz we wanted to go sightseeing. Before deciding to come to Graz I didn’t really know anything about the place, but after a small research before coming here I knew that Graz leans a bit more towards the Mediterranean styles of Italy rather than the Germanic styles in Vienna and northern Austria. As for the city the first thing we realized was that there is a small mountain in the middle of the town: Schlossberg. The mountain is over hundred meters high from the city level and houses the city’s symbol Clocktower Uhrturm and some old bastion and other medieval structures. So, this was where we wanted to head first.

I think the idea of a big ass hill in the middle of a town is cool. It seems like something from a fairy tale and for a finish boy from Pohjois-Pohjanmaa in Finland which is as flat as my singing voice it seemed like a fantasy. We planned on climbing up the mountain, but there were winter warning signs every where and we hesitated to cross them. Luckily there is a lift and funicular to the top and we ended up taking the lift. The view from the top was so beautiful, even tho it is “winter” here the weather was nice and visibility great so we could see all the way to the nearby mountains.

After making the rounds we decided to go full anarchy mode and cross the winter warning signs and walk down the hill. At some points it was little slippery, but we made it down in one piece. From the side of the hill we came down starts the city’s largest park and we strolled through it towards the opera house at the other end of the park and quite near our apartment. Truly a beautiful trip in the winter sunlight, I just can’t wait to see how the city starts to bloom in the spring.

Tall red church in the back is near our apartment

Only around 1500 kilometers to Finland

 And at the end of the day I had a beer at the apartment, and it was good.

Come with me if you want to live

Hello everyone! My name is Tuomas and this is my blog about my student exchange period in Graz, Austria. Along with me on my travels is my girlfriend Anne. I´m a masters level student in my home University of Oulu where I study software engineering. Anne does online studies to a University back home over the internet from Graz. The goal is to do a semester of studies in the University here at Graz and then return home around early July. 

That’s enough of the boring setup let’s talk about all the juicy nonsense people scroll the internet for. Main reason for me choosing Graz out of all the other unis in Europe is the fact that my idol Arnold Schwarzenegger (YES I can write the last name correct on the first time) is from the town of Thal which is a rock´s throw away form Graz. The title of the blog is one of his eternal one-liners from the Terminator franchise. In writing this blog I will try to share my experiences of the student life aboard and all the trips and travels we have time to do among the studies. I kept a similar blog when I was doing my practical training in the UK a couple of years back and I found it a fun experience to track my adventures. Like in that blog I will try to post once a week, but I won’t take this as work if I need to prioritise studies there might be a break. On the other hand, if there is a lot of happening there might be more posts.

Arnold picture i have on my wall back home

At the time of writing this it is the evening of our arrival here in Graz. The trip went overall well but it was full of messy moments and dumb mistakes a tired traveller makes. Some of the little things I’m not going to dwell too deeply into, but to list we had to pay extra for baggage because easyJet is a bit of a mess if you have more than hand luggage. Second, Anne “lost” her gloves at Helsinki airport for ten minutes while I accidentally sat right next to them while she was looking for them. The big one was when we got to our apartment and got to settle some of our stuff, Anne got a message from the airport that she had forgotten her camera bag in to the airport. Biggest scare from this was that our passports were in the bag. So, we headed into the new city to head straight back to the airport to pick up our things. These things happen when you travel and we were happy that we had left them at the Graz airport and not somehow in Berlin where we switched planes.

Funniest of scariest thing about this was once we got back to airport, we checked at the info that we have lost luggage to claim. It took fifteen minutes and three airport workers to get us the camera bag, then they told us that the passports had been taken to the airport police offices. It took maybe 30 seconds for us to get out passports from the non-English speaking police officer. They didn´t even bloody bother to ask us our names and just handed the damn things. I found this funny but kinda creepy. There of course is a possibility that the airport workers informed them of us and that’s why it was fast. Still at a Finnish police station you can´t even get a turn number in 30 seconds. Still we got all we wanted and we even bought our breakfast and necessities from the airport Spar, so couda been a lot worse and also couda been a lot smoother arrival. Anyway I believe that´s enough for the first post of this blog. I will be posting in a couple of days about the apartment and all we get to see here. Until then stay frosty my friends.

 

Two travelers

Plane magazine having interesting stories

lil food for the weary travelers