Graz!

On Christmas Eve, my dad and I drove from Vienna to Graz in our rental van while the rest of the family took the train. I am absolutely in love with the train ride between those two cities, with the snowy hills rising up around you as you travel through little countryside villages. I think it's beyond wonderful, so I convinced them all they had to do it, too. After Dad and I picked the crew up from the train station (conveniently right around the corner from my flat), we enjoyed a pretty low-key evening at my place. I think the jet-lag was starting to hit everyone. My parents went to their hotel on the other side of town and Randy and Jonathan stayed at my place to rest while the girls went to midnight mass at the Catholic cathedral in town. Way cool. Christmas Day was also very low-key and relaxed (the way it should be, I think), and we all just lounged around and then cooked when the time came. Before my family got here, I bought a cute little Christmas tree at the closest place to my flat I could find. Unfortunately, it was still about a 40-minute walk and I had to carry the thing the whole way. It was worth it, though. We decorated it "Austrian style" with real candles instead of electric lights and chocolates as ornaments. Pretty much everything was closed the next day in Graz, but we walked around the city anyways and were able to visit the armoury (explained below), which was extremely interesting. We were all a little disappointed in the lack of things we were able to do during our time in Graz, so we actually came back and stayed for a couple more days after we left Venice. The second time around we got to do a little shopping (ok, maybe a lot...), ate some delicious food, and went to the Kunsthaus, the modern art museum which is ridiculously interesting. Definitely need to go back there. I honestly think Graz is my favorite city in Europe so far. Granted, I've spent four months here and I've only spent a few days in all the other cities. I really think it's the perfect size, though...there aren't many tourists (if any), the huge student population gives it a lot of "life", it has as many or more cultural amenities than other more famous cities of its size (like Salzburg), it's safe, and it's totally walkable and/or bikeable. Yeah, I like it a lot.