First days in Graz

September 1st, my new apartment

The last day has been really difficult for me. In part it’s that I haven’t been eating properly-a combination of not wanting to impose on people who were doing me a favor, not feeling sure of my choices, and not really wanting to eat. But today, as I felt really low emotionally and weak physically, I realized that on top of not sleeping much for a couple of days, I hadn’t eaten anything more than a coffee and a juice in 24 hours and not much in the 24 hours before that. So I found food, took it home, and ate it. This is much more complicated in a city you don’t know, relying on your second language. I blend in well though: people have already asked me for directions twice, and everyone who doesn’t already know I’m an exchange student has used German with me. (Many if not most people here speak English better than I do German.)

I went to a Spar first and bough Zweibelbrotchen and Bergkaese. (Little onion breads and mountain cheese.) I tried to walk to the historic part of town to enjoy scenery with my meal, but my recouses were too low to manage it properly and I ended up walking in circles. I finally sat down on a bench and tried to eat, but even small bites made me feel nauseous. So I walked on and found a farmer’s market. I had wanted some fruit or vegetables to go with my meal, and here I saw beautiful tomatoes. I picked out a few and handed them to the owner of the stall, but when she saw how few there were she just gave them to me. I felt very taken care of, particularly since I had been feeling very alone.

I went home to eat so that I could have washed tomatoes and also something to drink. I had to eat kind of slowly to avoid feeling sick again, but I definitely feel better now. If I can find the energy in time, I’ll go out again-I could use tape for decorating, but more importantly I didn’t see any toilet paper in the bathroom. I still need to unpack, too.

Later

I just went out again, and along with toilet paper, I got cereal and milk for tomorrow, plus almonds for emergency protein. This time I didn’t get lost at all, and I remembered where the Spar from before was. Pretty impressive for a trip done while I needed to pee!

The wind has really come up in the last hour. I think a storm might be blowing in.

September 2, 2010, 19/2/2 Ghegagasse (my apartment)

My intuition has been through the roof lately. I navigated the...interesting...layout of the Frankfurt airport on a lucky guess, and if I had chosen the other option, I would have missed my flight to Graz. (As it was, I was in the last ten people through the gate-everyone else had already boarded.) Then today at Ikea, I bought batteries mostly on a whim...a few hours later, my camera batteries died.