Tag: winter

10 Moments from Austria That Stayed With Me

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My transcript from my time in Austria at the University of Graz arrived this week, which apart from being exciting in that I can claim credit, has also made me miss my winter adventures in Graz and Vienna. The weather in Brisbane is dropping, but it won’t be a winter with snow and frost and scarfs and gloves (for example, right now Brisbane is a whole 17 degrees).

Memories and reflections are a funny thing. They change over time – the things that stand out from my trip studying overseas are not the same things I would have drawn attention to at the time, or even in the weeks immediately afterwards.

So here’s 10 moments from Austria I remember vividly.

  1. Walking around the corner in Vienna and seeing Hofburg Palace before me and literally laughing out loud in delight.
  2. Wandering through the backstreets behind St Stephen’s Cathedral and encountering a ruined chapel and a surprise English bookstore.
  3. Walking into souvenir stores because they were warm and I was freezing.
  4. Not being able to speak in the Art History (Kunsthistorisches) Museum because I was in awe of the building and the art.
  5. Travelling with a group of Australian students and having intense constant interaction with them for three weeks.
  6. Walking up the Schlossberg (a mountain with a ruined castle on top of it), seeing the ground covered in snow and the texture of it underfoot.
  7. Stepping off the bus at Hallstatt and understanding why it had been called ‘the prettiest place on earth.’
  8. Walking past a dog park with bare trees and muddy dogs and stopping to pat them.
  9. Waiting for the tram to university one morning and having a ‘oh my gosh I’m studying in Austria’ moment. Also seeing a dog riding the tram for half price.
  10. Walking through Graz on my last day of class, with a clear blue sky and beautifully coloured houses, and knowing my adventure was almost at an end.

If you want to read more detailed accounts of my adventures, there are three posts up at the AIMOverseas blog (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3) and you can read my writing about it here on my own blog. (About Vienna, About The Course I Did, About Chance B, About Steinhof and About What I Learnt Travelling).