It is so difficult to know exactly where to start. I will get to Graz in a minute though. The trip over itself was amazing. I have travelled a lot in the past but this was the first time that i was well and truely on my own, like sure there were the other rotary students going to the various other European countries, but in a seriously short amount of time all that will be gone, and I'll be on my lonesome, it is quite a scary though when you sit down and think about it, and I had plenty of time on the flight to do that, especially due to the fact that I was given a window seat and the two people inside me SERIOUSLY wanted to sleep, but that aside. The Sydney/Narita (Tokyo) leg was fine. The accomodation was also fine, although it was about 50 or 60 bucks to get a decent meal, so being the connoisseurs we were we went to the conviencience store and got a heat-up curry, miso soup and a coke, lifestyles of the rich and famous, eh? Nah, it was fine. We wanted to go into downtown Narita but the tour leaders weren't keen so the idea was promptly canned.
On the flight to Frankfurt, we got up at 6:30 so we could get a good seat, as there was a check in centre in the lobby of the hotel, the flight left at 1:30 so we thought that we could get alright seats like 7 HOURS before the flight left, haha, we were wrong! But we managed to get seats all together which was ok. On the flight there was a man sitting across from me who had about 4 seats to himself, so i asked him if i could have the isle, long story short, it turned out that he was a singing teacher teaching at the top opera school in Vienna, and he was from Graz, so he invited me to come and see him, go and watch the opera, and maybe even pick some repetoire with him, what an excellent twist of fate!
Anyway the Frankfurt/Graz was fine and the Uranitches came to pick me up at the airport, I was in my full Rotary kit so i wasn't really hard to spot! The came to get me dressed entirely in traditional dress which was quite amusing because it was the only night of the year that they wear it. But we spoke endlessly on the way home about everthing and they showed me to my room when we got home, and it is absolutely awesome! I have a whole heap of space, with cupboards and drawers for everything, and a CD player so i can listen to music (in english!), but it is very good.
We went downstairs and had something to eat, and they asked if i wanted to go back to this ball with them, at 11:30! But to tell you the truth my body had absolutely NO idea what time it was so we went, but on the way they had a call from their son, Max, who is exactly a year younger than me, who was out, and we joined him, and i got to meet all his friends. The funniest aspect of the night however, by far, was the clothes everyone was in. As i said, this ball was on that night, and most of the town turns of for it or something similar, and they all wear the traditional clothes. Just try and imagine the sight of girls dancing on a bar wearing field dresses, headbands, and their hair put into pippy-longstockings style pigtails. And fellas, just a note, dancing to Eminem in Lederhosen just does not work! Haha, but it was a great night, and can't wait to see what we'll do tomorrow!
Paz