We started our day at about 3:30 AM and were at the Franciscan cloister in Graz by 4:00 AM. It was so early and dark and cold! It was Saturday morning, too, so some drunk people were still wandering the streets, especially since we had to walk through the red light district. Well, maybe it wasn't really a red light district, but there were lots of signs that said things like "Cold Drinks, Hot Girls!" We made the walk without incident, though.
We had a really Monty Python-esque moment when the friars came down to meet us. We were waiting at this massive door (see below). We heard footsteps resounding down some stone corridor and then lots of whispering followed by the turning of four or five ancient bolts. Then the door creaked open and a short friar stuck his head out, retreated, and slammed the door again. More whispering. Apparently everything seemed safe, so the group joined us outside and led us to the bus.
The Door. It was much darker out than it seems in the picture.
The Door. It was much darker out than it seems in the picture.
Our friendly and helpful friars.
After about three hours of riding in the most uncomfortable tour bus I've met to date, we arrived at Mariazell. About a million buses (slight exaggeration) and about 30,000 people (slight underestimate) arrived at around the same time, so it was all pretty wild. Of course, it was drizzling the whole time and pretty cold.
Did I mention that Mariazell is in the Alps, like, on a mountain? And we had to climb it. And every pilgrim climbing the mountain had to pee. And there was only one port-a-potty. All the guys just dove off into the brush, but the women were all lined up for the potty. I eventually followed the lead of a fat old lady and went behind a hay bale. What relief. Unfortunately, we were both too distracted at the time to think to take a picture.
Did I mention that Mariazell is in the Alps, like, on a mountain? And we had to climb it. And every pilgrim climbing the mountain had to pee. And there was only one port-a-potty. All the guys just dove off into the brush, but the women were all lined up for the potty. I eventually followed the lead of a fat old lady and went behind a hay bale. What relief. Unfortunately, we were both too distracted at the time to think to take a picture.
Heading up.
This was our allotted space in the crowd. We were closer than most, believe it or not.
The Pope arrives! See the whitish car thing right in the middle of the picture? That's the Pope-Mobile.
Our view. We stood here for over four hours. The tiny blip on the platform way up on the left is the Pope.
The Mass was pretty weird. We're pretty sure the Pope wasn't too involved in the planning, like picking the vestments and stuff. Most of the Mass was in German, but the rest was in one of the languages of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. It was neat. Erik understood quite a bit, but I was mostly there just soaking up the atmosphere. The people near us were really neat and really excited to be there. There was a good mix of young and old, just different kinds of people all having that experience together. I wouldn't trade the experience, but I'm not sure that I'd want to go again.
The Mass was pretty weird. We're pretty sure the Pope wasn't too involved in the planning, like picking the vestments and stuff. Most of the Mass was in German, but the rest was in one of the languages of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. It was neat. Erik understood quite a bit, but I was mostly there just soaking up the atmosphere. The people near us were really neat and really excited to be there. There was a good mix of young and old, just different kinds of people all having that experience together. I wouldn't trade the experience, but I'm not sure that I'd want to go again.
The procession of the Magna Mater Austriae.
There was a procession of this image after the Mass. It's at least 850 years old and was kind of the symbol of the unity of Austria and its empire. It was really neat to see all the Slovenes, Hungarians, Croatians, Poles, etc. coming together with the Austrians at this event. Some of the pilgrims were even waving Habsburg flags. We stuck with our "Viva Papa!" one.We started down the mountain on the wrong path and made it a long way before we realized we weren't going towards our bus. So, we climbed back up and found the right path down. It was fine, though, because we were on the bus well before it left. We didn't get back to our hotel in Graz until 7:00 PM or so, so it was a really long day. We devoured our dinner and went to bed. We slept really well after such a long day!
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