September 7 Part II

We arrived in Graz at about 3:00 in the afternoon and walked from the station to our hotel. Fortunately, the hotel was much closer to the train station than the last one was. After checking in, I decided to take a nap, and Erik left to figure out our plans for the next day.

Gasthof zur Steierstub'n

I woke up about two and a half hours later and was dismayed to find that Erik was still gone. He had made arrangements with the diocese of Graz to send to our hotel our tickets for the Pope's visit to Mariazell. Unfortunately, the reception had no idea what we were talking about. So Erik went on an odyssey beginning with an internet café and including three churches and the diocesan museum. After about three hours of searching for someone who could help, Erik finally ambushed some Franciscans after their afternoon Mass. After bumbling around in German for about half an hour, the brothers brought down Br. Franz, a giant with a shaved head. Br. Franz knew English and was really happy to help. He spent about 40 minutes making several phonecalls and finally sorted things out. He told Erik to meet them at 4 AM in from of the cloister so that we could all walk to the bus together. Lucky break!

The Franciscan church where Erik finally found help.

After Erik finally made it back to the hotel at about 6:00 (he wasn't dead in the street somewhere, after all!), we went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We both had Styrian Schnitzel with wine for me and a Pils for Erik for under 20 Euro! Much better than prices in Vienna! The hotel was about 20 Euro cheaper a night, too. The food was better, and the hotel was nicer. Unfortunately, Graz is apparently the city that never sleeps (on Friday nights at least), so we didn't get a lot of sleep that night in preparation for our 3:00 wake-up time the next morning...