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Published: June 15th 2009
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Doppelregenbogen
We had one of the worst storms I've seen yet in Graz, where the square next to my building was struck by lightning, and afterwards there was a double rainbow, which I'd never seen before. Greetings,
I have two adventures to inform you about, so buckle up.
Last Sunday, I had a pretty "Slovakian" day, as I went for a day trip to a little city about a half-hour north of Graz, named Frohnleiten. I went with Lubo, with whom I'd gone to Salzkammergut, Lucia, and Mirka, all from Slovakia. We drove up with our friend's car, as he was in Spain and had left the car to Lubo, and got a little lost along the way. Anyways, we arrived in the beautiful, but deserted, city of Frohnleiten, which two or three years ago had won an award either in Austria or Europe for being one of the most beautiful flower cities. It was very small, but very pretty.
We arrived and found Hauptplatz, and as the weather was so nice, we stopped at a little cafe, as the girls wanted coffee, and Lubo and I helped ourselves to ice cream. It was wild because we were some of the only people in the entire square, which was actually quite big, and yet it was such a nice day that we'd figured lots of people would be there. Anyways, we
Hauptplatz
The main square of Frohnleiten. tried to find a map of the city, which failed miserably, but luckily, there were markers here and there of the 10 or 12 most important things to see. We began at number 4, and continued our way around the city, taking a stroll along the river, seeing various things of interesting, and enjoying the city's park, which was full of Austrians naturally in Lederhosen and Dirndln, as they always seem to wear them as just everyday clothes.
Unfortunately, as we made it back to Hauptplatz and started to look for a good place to eat lunch, it started downpouring. Being the gents we are, Lubo and I ran to get the car, and sped in to pick up the ladies. We then headed to a small village called Peggau, which is where the Lurgrotte cave system is where I'd gone to in October. We stopped at the same Gasthaus where I'd eaten on the Lurgrotte expedition, and then continued on our merry way back to Graz. All in all, a very fun day, despite some bad weather towards the end.
This past Saturday, I was up at 6am, and left my apartment at 6:30. Libor, Martyna, and
Hauptplatz
Absolutely empty. I walked to Hauptbahnhof, where we met up with three of our Austrian friends, David, Martina, and Yanbo, as well as our friend Mio from Japan. We set out in two cars, destination: Wildalpen, a small village whose name means the Wild Alps. What we were going to do there, you might ask? Oh, you know, just a little white-water rafting!
We got to the place where we were supposed to set out, where we met our guide, Pepi, a crazy guy from Vienna, and then we all got our wetsuits. We were equipped with wetsuits, boots, jackets, lifejackets, and helmets. After getting a brief lesson in Viennese German as well as boat safety , we hopped in the van, drove the 5km to the start point, and set out with Pepi! We got out onto the Salza River, which wasn't too too cold, but by no means warm, and set out on our way. The water was absolutely gorgeous, crystal clear, and a beautiful color you normally would envision in the Caribbean. There're 6 levels of difficulty in white-water rafting, and we were on a number 2, so it wasn't particularly
Teamwork
Mirka and I both had to capture this moment as Lucia got a hand from Lubo. too difficult, but fun no less. We hit our first set of rapids, where Pepi made sure we all got hit with the most amount of water, and had an absolute blast.
We ended up being on the river for about 2 hours. About an hour into the adventure, Pepi, just making conversation, started talking about a woman who died on the river last week. The official story is that she had a heart attack, but he told us that she actually went overboard, and they've yet to find the body. We were all quite comforted by this information, and figured we'd have the misfortune of finding the body. Right after he told us this, we made a little stop at a springboard. Roughly 10 feet above the surface of the water, there was a platform where you could run and jump into the river. Of course, you have to realize that the current was veeeeery fast, and when jumping, you weren't just jumping. You had to have precision for the landing, as there were massive rocks on all sides. If you hit wrong...oops.
Fearless, we all climbed up to the platform, and one by one took the
Hauptplatz
It wasn't so wide as it was long. jump. It was awesome! As soon as you hit the water, you had to start kicking immediately to break the surface, and once breaking the surface, had to swim as hard as you could to get out of the current. We all suceeded, though at one point Mio had a little trouble. She wasn't exactly looking where she was swimming, and ended up swimming straight downstream, giving everybody a near heartattack. Her response upon making it to shore? "That was fun, let's do it again!"
We then continued on our rafting adventure, all very content but of course freezing. We'd asked Pepi how cold the water was, and he looked at Libor, David, and me, the three guys on the trip, held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, and goes, "'bout that cold."
When we reached the end, we were picked up by the van and brought back to Wildalpen, where we showered and changed back into warm clothes. We continued on our way then to Admont, home to the cloister with the world's biggest cloister library. We took a small tour of there, which was really cool, and had tons of books from the 1200s
City Gates
On the right is the old city gate. on. It was all really nice, and we saw some of the other museum exhibits in the cloister. We then stayed in Admont for lunch/dinner, before continuing to the village of Frauenberg, home to a pilgrimage church which we visited. After our brief stop in Frauenberg, we headed to Burg Strechau, outside of Rottenmann, a privately owned castle, which was really nice. Unfortunately we were too late and didn't get to see very much, but the little we did see was amazing. We then headed to Rottenmann, where we stopped for an ice cream to end the day. Overall, the day was a blast, but absolutely exhausting.
Now, I'm just hanging out in Graz. Libor and I are going to go to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, on Wednesday for the day, and then on Saturday night I'm having a cook-out with my friends in honor of my 21st. That's about it for here, just in the midst of exams, which is always a blast. Enjoy the pictures!
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Shrinkage said George..........the pool was cold!