GRAZZZZZZZZ

so on friday night 6 of us decided to head to graz this morning. its a smaller town about 4 hrs by the slow train away from vienna. there's lots of interesting architecture there. its good for a day trip from the city. but instead of going home to get some sleep before we left at 4:30 am for the train station, i decided to hang out at industrial design techno party in Greg Lynn's studio upstairs in the school. that was pretty cool, but it immediately led to meeting up with sarah, her boyfriend, and some friends from school at the "whole in the wall" voodoo bar on my way home. then it was off to the "hotdog stand" bar that actually has a hotdog stand in the bar. kinda cool. since it was getting really late, i made the decision to just stay out until i had to go meet bin and huan and the others at the train station. had my hotdog breakfast at the bar and walked home at 4 am to meet them. changed really quick, and walked to the subway station w/the roommates. i was sooo tired. stupid idea. it was like oxford deja vu....

we made it to the train station, but it was hard to find, so we definitely missed the train by 30 seconds. it was about 5:30 am at this time. sooo tired. we figured out a way to get there and back through different trains at different times, and basically this required us to make three different stops along the way over a period of 7 hours. haha. so we did it anyways (minus huan, who decided to head back to bed). it was crazy. we left at 6 am and got to graz around 1 pm. i did a little bit of sleeping in between these stops, but it was pretty annoying getting woken up all the time to change trains and walk around in the cold every now and then. there was some wait time in the middle, and we spent it cruising around little towns that we were stuck at. they were actually reallllly cool. one of them was so cool that we considered just staying there for the day eating snacks. mmmmm snacks. one snack we did try was this hot, sweet, wine that only comes around about this time of the year. it was wine. it was hot. it was sweet. interesting. not only that but the train ride on the way to these cities was beautiful. we were next to the alps, cruising thru mountains that were covered with trees changing colors completely, with larger mountains in the background beginning to show signs of snow. below all this was endless farmland with little traditional style austrian architecture. so awesome.

and graz was pretty amazing. saw some awesome contemporary architecture. for example, a blob building that kind of creeps through a part of the old city and houses some andy warhol artwork. nice. the six of us explored that for a while and then some other random pavilion on the river. but then...the castle on the hill. boom. it was awesome. overlooks the entire city...kind of reminded me of munich. stayed up there for while, joking around and doing stupid things as usual, and then headed out to a UN Studio building at the university there. its a glass concert hall. the first ever. its amazing. the concrete formwork was some of the coolest work i've ever seen. snuck around inside and watched some lady give a presentation to a class. then it was time to get some food. went to a little cafe and had a schnitzel burger while watching a little futbol on the tube there. this schnitzel burger was like the greasiest things i've ever eaten. it was PERFECT. topped it off with a couple bottles of wine while walking around the city towards the train station afterwards...everyone seems to love the idea of being able to have a drink on the street with no problems. kind of funny. by this time we were ready to head back. it was like 7 pm and i was about ready to die for exhaustion. but even so, i didnt sleep on the trains we took back. we all kicked it for hours and talked about complete randomness. it was great. train rides are actually pretty funny when you can make fun of eachother consistently...especially bin. he and i have a lot of fun together just making fun of eachother and joking around. its great. im hoping we can kick it a lot back in LA when he returns in February. also, im hoping Monica, a girl from LA that goes to school with bin, will be able to meet up with us when we get back as well. it's nice meeting some new people from california out here that i can easily keep in touch with when im back in the states.

so now im home, its 12 am. i am dead tired. when i think about the moments we spent running to the train station early this morning right before we missed it, it seems like 2 days ago. im finished with saturday. it was ridiculously long, but worth it. all this crap only cost me 30 euros. pretty awesome. would have been even cheaper if we didn't miss that first train, but hey...this story wouldnt be as interesting if we made that train and went straight to graz and back.

k im going to bed. goodnight people.