K & L's Travel Blog

We take a slow morning.  Lorena gets anxious that we need to “get out there.”  I like lounging around.  At home, one of our daily travel excursions would be enough excitement for a week and here we have two or three a day.   There is probably a happy medium.  It is interesting to consider retirement and the balance between slow and fast.  

But I will say that it is so much fun to have the “want to dos” far outweigh the “have to dos.”  

We strike out in once again with wonderful weather.  Lorena says, “I could be wearing shorts.”  

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We head for Delikatessen Frankowitsch, an 1930s restaurant that serves open faced sandwiches. You step up to a glass counter and tell or point to what you want.  No time for ruminating or being unsure.  The quality was incredible and I wonder, “could this type of establishment make it in Asheville?” 

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Our next stop was a visit to the old Graz Castle which was once the former imperial residence.  We had specifically read about a Renaissance “double spiral staircase” that intrigued us.  “The first documentary mention of the castle stems from the year 1346.”  How amazing it is to consider the age of the structures especially compared to our nation!  The staircase stairs are sturdy and carved out of stone.  They are strangely difficult to climb and make you dizzy, but both Lorena and I make it to the top.  

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We wander around the castle gardens and I am delighted to see the squirrels with tufted ears.  We had seen them thirty years ago and I am so happy they are still here.  We also found the shop where we bought my toddler nephew Tom Lederhosen thirty-plus years ago.  He now has two toddlers of his own!

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We hop a tram to the last stop at Puntigam to visit their brewery and have a beer.  When we get out the tram the air is thick with the sweet odor of hops.  We were expecting a beer garden and arrive to be told that the season is over and the garden is closed, you can sit in the restaurant for a beer.  The waiter is super officious and cold.  He seems impatient with us and after Lorena orders water and beer, he wheels around and quickly leaves before we know what happened.  I am astounded and look to the other customers as if to say, “see what just happened to us?”  Does he not like Americans?  Heavy women? Lesbians?  Finally, he brings the beer and water and we realize that he thought Lorena was ordering the water for me.  In the USA if the same thing had happened while ordering I would never have never let the waiter leave.  I would have yelled “wait a minute, what about me!”  The misunderstandings continue.  Lorena orders pretzels and he says something that Lorena interprets as “You have to get them yourself.”  We wait a while and Lorena gets up “I’m going to get us pretzels.”   She comes back all flushed and laughing,  “I just had a spat in German.”   It seems she inquired after the pretzels and the waiter said, “I told you we have to bake them!”  Lorena defended herself, “I misunderstood you.”  He finally brings a basket of the freshest, most wonderful pretzels we have ever had. Plus, the beer was exceptional.  We pay and Lorena thinks it is a different waiter.  He is kind and now speaks English.  No, it’s the same waiter.  We laugh on the tram the whole way home.  

On the tram they have recorded announcements of the upcoming stops.  The English America accented announcement tickles us: “Island in the Mur.”  Listen and enjoy.