This past weekend was really fun, my friend Lu & I went to a wine and cultural festival in Graz, Austria. Graz was kind of a random town for us to go to, it's a huge college town in Austria and we'd heard that it was beautiful so we decided to check it out for the weekend. Getting to Graz ended up being an almost disaster..Lu & I got on the train at the wrong train station in Bratislava and were lost in the transit system for a little while. Luckily, we met a really nice girl on our train who spoke English and helped us figure out the best way to get there. We only got to Graz about an hour after we were supposed to, so it wasn't too bad! Since Graz is a huge college town, Lu & I went out to the college bars after we finally got to our hotel & checked in, and met some really interesting people including a national hockey team and a DJ, so needless to say it was an entertaining night!
We also were lucky that the cultural festival was going on the weekend we were there, since we didn't know anything about it beforehand! Everyone was dressed up in traditional attire (think lederhosen here), and there were a ton of vendors selling different kinds of food, drinks, and crafts. The specialty drink here was burciak which is a really young, and incredibly sweet wine it its early stages of fermentation. So Laura & I tried that, but had to water it down with soda water since it's so sweet. People there were drinking it by the liter though, I have no idea how they do it!
With my burciak at the festival!
That night Lu & I went to a local pub near the festival called "The Office", it was such a fun bar. The owners were all British which was great since they spoke English! They even put American college football on the big screen for us so we had a great time.
This past week was mainly me settling in at work and in my apartment. I'm really enjoying my role right now and am hoping that continues throughout my rotation. Every week there's a group of us who aren't from Slovakia that go out for an "International Dinner", the goal is to try a new restaurant around Bratislava every week so that's a fun thing to look forward to during the work week! This weekend Lu & I are headed to the High Tatras which is a really beautiful mountainous region in Slovakia, I'll update next week!
Cultural Performances at the Festival
City View of Graz, Austria
Can't wait to see pics of your Euro apartment! Hope you are settling in and feeling more and more at home. Love reading about your adventures and can just image the food! Take care. We love you.
ReplyDeleteAunt Cathy