Monday, September 13, 2010

Graz

So my first time in Austria!

I am at a conference in Graz Austria. I took a flight from Dusseldorf to Vienna. Unfortunaetly, the flight was at 7:20, so I had to leave my flat at 3:15 in the morning. The 4:00 train to Dusseldorf was surprisingly full of people. I didn't see too many drunk people, although one guy staggered up the center of the train, but he didn't bother anyone.

At Vienna airport I took some fast train to the city center. There I got lost, because I couldn't find the main railway station. There seemed to be a lot of construction work in the center. I was told later that they are building a new main railway station.

My mind was fogged by the lack of sleep, but I finally got a ticket from a machine and took a train to a bigger train station, where the internet had told me that the train to Graz started. On the train I was reading "what they teach you at Harvard Business school". At one point, I looked up I saw all these green hills and mountains. So this is Austria I thought.

At one station, some young guy asked me some german shit. He switched to English and asked to use my mobile phone to call his home. In a misguided feeling of being European, I gave him my mobile. He then proceeded to call the wrong person. (This is an English mobile dude, I thought, time really is money.). Afterwards we had a bit of a chat. He had a sister who lived in London town. At some stage he asked me what I was planing to do in Vienna for my holiday after the meeting. I have planned nothing. He was not impressed. He then asked me for famous Austrians. I flunked that test. When we got to famous Germans, I said "Karl Marx", he hadn't heard of him. Fucking unification He was a nice guy. He helped me find my hotel, whicb was close to the railway station.