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On Saturday, it was finally time to visit Vienna! We went to Graz in the morning to catch the FlixBus that would take us to Vienna. After a 2 hour ride, we arrived at Vienna, eventhough we still needed to take the train to go to the center of the city.

After arriving at the center we walked around the pretty and historical streets of Vienna for a little bit.

We passed by the Stephansplatz, which is a square at the geographical centre of Vienna, where the famous Stephansdom is located! One of the most beautiful and tallest churches in the world. We entered it and it was just as imposing as the outside area.

We saw many other monuments like the building of the Parliament, the Josefplatz, the heldenplatz, the volksgarten and much more!

You begin to notice how the majority of the buildings here have the rooftops made of copper, as well as every statue, everything basically has a green roof!

We also walked by Mariahilfstraße, the largest and one of the most famous shopping streets in Vienna. It contained lots of shops, restaurants, food spots and many brands that we sadly don’t have in Portugal!

On our way to the hotel, where we were going to check in and drop our luggage, we saw the river of Vienna on the train, called Donau.

We chilled for a bit in the hotel and after a while we decided to head for the centre of the city again.

It was already getting dark, but we were still able to see lots of touristic attractions!

We saw the Peterskirche church and went inside. It has a lot of golden arrangements and lots of art scattered everywhere. Definitely one of the most majestic churches i’ve ever been in.

We also saw the Pestsäule, an incredible sculptural work located directly on the street.

After touristing a lot and talking about a traditional cake they have in Austria, Sachertorte, and how I should really try it, we felt a bit tired and wanted to eat something. So, we headed to Five Guys to have dinner. After dinner we realised how tired we were from walking around so much so we just really went home.

We went into Billa, one of the main supermarkets here, to buy some resources for the next day since everything is closed on Sunday.

We headed home, I had great conversations with Mia and her best friend, we all got a late night snack at the McDonald’s we had next to our hotel, and, finally, went to sleep.

I really loved Vienna, the only thing that may have ruined my first impression of the city would be the people. People in Vienna tend to be a bit rude sometimes and I’ve had two bad experiences where people start complaining at me on public transports, when in reality I didn’t do anything wrong. But if we skip that, then Vienna is just a perfect city!

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On tuesday we woke up, ate breakfast, and got ready with our snow clothing to go to the mountains. We were planning on going sledging today! It’s basically a sleigh ride down the mountain.

The mountain that we were going into is a part of the Alpes mountain range and it was so incredible to see so many gigantic geologic structures from up close! I mean, we have lots of mountains in Portugal, but nothing close to that proportion and beauty.

First we had to rent our sleds, after that we got up the mountain by caboe car. I’m not gonna lie, at first, I was terrified. I barely have experience with snow, much less riding a sled down a big mountain. Nonetheless, they teached how to control it and everything went alright.

It was an incredible experience! I loved the feeling of the wind and snow on my face, the adrenaline of rushing down the mountain, the slight desperation when you’re going too fast and feel like you’re loosing control, everything about it was extremely fun. At one point I couldn’t even stop laughing.

I liked it so much that we did it a second time.

After coming down from the second ride, we decided to give it a rest and go eat lunch at the local restaurant there. Basically every skiing or snowboarding place has a local restaurant. We went inside, ate a lot because we were all very hungry and just hung out until it was time to leave.

We said our goodbyes and started our trip back to Deutschlandsberg.

On the way back, the sun started to set and I was able to see so many gorgeous mountains, still a part from the Alpes, with the beautiful orange sunlight shining through them. Mia’s mom told me so many things. We passed her hometown and she was telling me how her childhood was in the mountains. Some places get barely any sunlight because of the high mountains, therefore being very depressing. I even learned how many ancient houses in Austria

are built with a wood upper part. It’s typical from the ancient architecture and it has the goal of protecting the house from ocasional snow storms, from what I understood.

We arrived home and I asked Mia if we could eat one specific austrian food that I just loved again. They’re called knödels and they can be served in many ways. They’re made with a sort of paste and they can be filled with sweet or with salty foods. The ones I really liked were covered in sweet bread crumbs and filled with strawberry jam.

We fortunately ate them for dinner, and for the rest of the night we just chilled and talked.

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Wesdnesday was my last day here but we didn’t have anything major planned.

I studied a bit, watched some TV shows and started packing.

We had lunch, it was another austrian dish that we had eaten before but i requested it again since I liked it so much, a sort of mac and cheese but with a really strong cheese.

After lunch and around sunset time, Mia took me to a place in Stainz, close to where she grew up, and we basically went all the way up into a wooden tower that exists there in a forest. She’s been going there for ages now.

I think it was a great activity for me to properly say goodbye to Austria. I say this because it was so nice to see the sunset up there, the sun hiding behind the mountains, all the cities and homes before us, everything covered in snow… I even wrote on a little notebook they keep there for everyone to register their experience when they go up the small tower.

We got home, talked about life, and ended the night watching our favourite TV show at the moment.

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On Monday we were very tired from Vienna so we slept in. We had another austrian dish at lunch, it was a sort of omelette but made of potato.

We didn’t really have anything to do until 17pm, the time that we were going to be leaving. Our plans for today were going to the upper part of Styria, where Mia’s uncle

lives, more specifically called St. Martin am Grimming.

It was a 2 hour ride. When we finally arrived it was already night. I got to meet her uncle and her mom’s part of the family. They were all very nice in general.

After eating the leftovers of lunch, we went to a “bar”, which was really just an hanging out spot at her uncle’s garage. We stayed there for some time, until we were all too tired to keep talking.

We listened to some old music, we played darts, we talked, we ate, we drank, we even played a typical game from her family involving a wood log, a hammer and nails (I swear it wasn’t dangerous, it was actually pretty fun)!

It was a great night and I loved meeting this side of her family.

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On Sunday, we woke up and had to check out from our hotel josefplatz at 11am. Our plans for today were to see the Natural History Museum of Vienna and to go to the Palace, to the garden, and to the Zoo of Schönbrunn.

First, we spent basically the whole morning on the Natural History Museum. It contained expositions from various areas of Science, like anthropology, zoology, botanic, archaeology, the study of dinosaurs, and much more! It was so interesting, I spent like 2 hours walking around there just admiring everything and reading every sign. Not only that, but the inside of the museum was so rich and beautiful! It had paintings, sculptures, decorated columns, everything!

After we were finished seeing every exposition, we went to a cheap sushi place to eat something for lunch. We ate lunch admiring the beauty of the streets of Vienna.

After that we went to the train station to catch the train going to Schönbrunn.

It was a long ride, but we finally made it there. Firstly, we walked around the zoo, we saw reptiles, many species of birds, of fish, we saw giraffes, elephants, koalas, penguins, rhinoceros, tigers, lions, flamingos, zebras, monkeys, polar bears, meerkats, honestly, every single animal you think of is probably present on this zoo. It’s actually the oldest zoo in Europe. Eventhough zoos are kind of a cruel place, i’m just glad these animals have a home and food available everyday!

After seeing the majority of the animals, we left the zoo and walked around the Schönbrunn Garden, leading all the way up to the Schönbrunn Palace! It was all very beautiful and I think this palace used to be home to one of the many Emperors of Austria. Sadly we didn’t go in, but it was still so worth it to see it from the outside!

After seeing everything, we went back to the train station so we could catch a bus back to Graz and then go home.

Another cultural thing from Austria, interestingly, everything is closed on Sundays, even supermarkets, basically the only thing open are restaurants and gas stations. In the train station we couldn’t buy anything at the supermarket because they were all closed already.

We catched our Flixbus, and went back home.

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On friday we didn’t go to school because Mia wasn’t feeling so well. I woke up before my alarm and saw that Alice had messaged me saying that it finally snowed! They told us before how unusual it was that it hadn’t snowed that much all winter, therefore we were so lucky to finally witness it!

It’s crazy really, I never saw that much snow and I never got to experience the feeling of stepping on newly formed soft snow, it was definitely a great experience!

I went on a morning walk to walk their dog, with Mia’s mom around the forest, since they have a forest right beside their house. I played a lot in the snow, and even made a Snow Angel!

Later in the afternoon, Mia had a dentist appointment so I accompanied her.

After arriving home and eating dinner, Mia and I decided to take a late night walk around the city. I got to know a bit more of her surroundings and we just had great talks in general.

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On Thursday,  we went to see an english play on the theatre in Deutschlandsberhg on the first two periods of the morning, and it was an activity directed by the english teachers! It was nice that we could finally understand something, since the musical from the prior day was in german and not in english!

At first, I thought  the play was a bit weird, the actors just came off really strong which not any of us were expecting! But that just shows how good their acting skills are when interpreting college students on a party, which can be a quite chaotic scenario. And the play was basically about 3 college students leaving together, and each one of them, at some point in their life, were very awful towards a certain girl. A detective came by to question them because a girl tried to kill herself on campus. The end was up to interpretation because some topics weren’t exactly clarifying enough.

We walked back to school and I spent the morning in the library studying Portuguese and Biology.

Mia was again busy with the musical, and they presente it in an Auditorium a bit far away, so she wasn’t around for the whole day and just came home at 22. Because of that, I got to spend the whole day with Alice and Elena!

We went to Elena’s home and cooked lunch. Me and Alice also got some work done while Elena studied. The afternoon ended with us eating pizza and watching Jessie, a Disney show from our childhood. Elena then drove me home because her and Elena had to go to school, and, happily, Mia’s house was in the way.

When Mia came home we had dinner and talked about her friends and colleagues from school, because we were analysing their yearbook!

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Today the musical that Mia was practicing for finally happened. After being on the library for a while and going to some classes, it was time to go see it, so we went down to the Auditorium and sat down.

The musical was about artificial intelligence and how it could ruin music in the future.

Even though they were speaking german, I kind of understood some of the plot, which was nice.

All of the songs were also very nice, everyone played instruments and sung so well!

After the musical ended, we just went home and didn’t do much for the rest of the day since both of us had to study.

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On tuesday I was feeling a little sick so I didn’t really go to school. Also, even if I had gone to school, I wouldn’t have had classes because the whole of the 8th Grade (equal to the 12th grade in Portugal) was in Graz visiting the universities.

Mia didn’t go to Graz because her and the members of the band and the participants of the musical had to stay in school to practice, so, either way, I wouldn’t have done anything in school so I just stayed home studying.

Mia came home, we had lunch, watched a bit of TV and just chilled.

At night we went out to meet some of Mia’s friends, and we were hysterical hanging out at some spots.

We were at the castle, we drove by some streets, and just talked a lot in general. We had then dinner at Mc Donald’s and their menu is so different from ours, they have so many more options! After that we just got home and went to sleep.

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Today we went to school and Mia was at rehearsal so I spent the morning in the library.

Today was also the ski trip, so around 12:45 we got our snow clothes from the car, which we packed the night before, and got dressed in the bathroom. After being fully equipped we headed to the bus that was going to take us to the mountain. When we arrived there, I was already astonished by the beauty and grandiosity of the mountains, they were beautiful and full of snow.

We didn’t actually ski, at least I never learned how to do it and we didn’t have proper equipment, so me, Alice, and some 3 students went on a hike with the Chemistry teacher, while the rest of the students were skiing.

We weren’t really prepared for the adventure we were about to experience, everyone had food and water, but no one told me and Alice that we were going up the mountain. Either way, everything turned out good. We pushed ourselves so hard and even got to one of the highest points there, if not the highest.

After that we got back down and went back to the school, it was a very tiring but fun day.

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Today we didn’t really do much. We slept in, I had breakfast with Mia’s mom since Mia was still sleeping, and we discussed various topics while eating.

I basically just chilled and studied Maths for the rest of the day.

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On Saturday we slept in because we had a long day ahead of us. At around 12 in the morning, me, Mia and her mom left home, and we were going to the Zotter Chocolate Factory, a very famous chocolate company here in Austria! We stopped at Billa, a famous supermarket here, to buy some snacks for our drive there.

The factory was beautiful! First, we saw a video that showed us how the chocolate is produced and where they get their resources for it, claiming that every cocoa bean was 100% organic and made with love by trustworthy farmers. After that explanation, we started going around the factory, where we could try up to 300 different types of chocolate, while seeing through glass how the chocolate is made. It was a great experience, eventhough I got sick of eating and trying so many chocolate flavours.

And that wasn’t the best part… After visiting the factory itself, we went walking around the outside area, where it was basically a Zoo! They had so many animals, from sheep, cows, pigs and chickens to buffaloes, alpacas, donkeys, bunnies, ostriches and even mini kangaroos!

It was just a great experience, we even got to pet some of them!

After that we went home, had dinner and got ready to go out, because Mia was invited to a birthday party. I had lots of fun at the party and met many new great people!

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Me and Alice spent again the whole morning in the library studying Maths and Biology.

Mia was having band rehearsal for the whole day because they’re gonna have a musical next week, and we decided that I should spend the afternoon with Alice and Elena so I wouldn’t be alone.

In Elena’s house we cooked lunch and just chilled for the whole afternoon, for example, we played some video games. Mia picked me up, took me home, and we watched a series for the rest of the night.

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Today, me and Alice studied for the whole morning in the library, as usual.

After school, Mia and I went home and ate another austrian traditional food.

We had to go to Graz again because her father prepared more meals for us and we needed to get them. Since we went to Graz, we took the opportunity to see more things! We went to a modern art exposition in a museum, and it consisted of various art works regarding power and the influence it has in our society. Some were about war, about Communism, about revolution and even about money. It was very interesting and I really liked it there!

After that we walked around some more and ate some pastries.

On the way to her father’s apartment, I noticed how much street art in here is normalised! You can see painted walls on basically every street, and I think we should do that as well in Portugal.

I also noticed, and Mia even talked to me about it before, how every license plate here has meaning, the first letter stands for the city or area where the person lives.

After hanging out a bit at her father’s apartment, we drove back to Deutschlandsberg.

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Today, in the morning, I studied for the Portuguese exam in the library with Alice.

After school was over, Mia drove us home and we had lunch, another great traditional austrian dish that contained meat, a salty sauce, and a kind of ball that had bread crumbs, herbs, eggs, etc. I asked them the name of the dish but I can’t remember it right now, it was very good!

After lunch, Mia took me to see the villlage where she basically grew up, called BadGams.

She showed me some things like a beautiful park, an abandoned health building, primary schools, a church, a natural pool that they go to in summer, etc.

We also hiked to one of the mountains around there, and we had a great view of our surroundings. The landscapes here are just astonishing!

Then we went home and just studied or did school work for the rest of the day.

However, at dinner we ate an omelet with apricot or apple cream, and I just now realised the fact that they put jam in everything! Even in salty foods, which I think is a bit weird, but still so interesting and delicious!

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Today, me and Alice studied maths in the library and I also had english class.

Mia and Elena had classes in the afternoon, so me and Alice were walking around the city in the lunch break.

We were walking around, found a cool small river, we explored some residential areas, went to some groceries stores and drug stores, and just had fun walking in the city in general.

After that, we came back to school, and after Alice and Elena left, I entered Mia’s class, mainly to see what they were doing. She was having music class and it was longer than usual because they were training as a band for the musical that’s gonna happen in school, which I’m very excited to see! I also think the dynamic they have is so

fun, having the ability to learn various instruments in school is just great.

Then we went home and just studied for the rest of the night.

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Today Mia had a big german exam so i spent most of the school morning in the library with Alice. I also went to a Lidl close to the school with Alice, and we were able to see the differences between the supermarket here and in Portugal.

In english class today the teacher asked me if we do oral exams in the english national exams, and he told me that it’s not usual here.

After school we had lunch at home, as usual. We rested for a bit and then Mia drove me to Graz again because we were gonna have dinner with her father and brother.

But on the way there, we stopped so she could show me a new city called Stainz. We saw a beautiful monument there and just drove by the streets to see some colourful houses. During the drive I showed Mia some portuguese songs I enjoy.

At Graz we had dinner and just talked for the whole evening. I really enjoyed meeting them and discussing topics with them. Mia’s father gifted me a box with wafers that are very typical here, but the box was from a limited edition that recreated the old boxes from the 1890’s, so I basically got a vintage version of it!

After that we came back home and just got ready to go to sleep.

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Today we didn’t really do much since everything is closed on Sunday. We ate a traditional austrian breakfast with a charcuterie board, some kind of milk

cream with pumpkin seed oil to put on the bread, vegetables, eggs, everything tasted really good!

I also ate one of the famous pastries here that looks like a “bola de berlim”.

We just chilled for the rest of day and watched some TV.

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Today we visited Graz and basically spent all day there. We went by train and during the ride we had great views of Austria, and I noticed once more how most buildings here are yellow, it probably has something to do with an historical or cultural thing.

In Graz, Mia showed me the center of the city, she took me to Stadtpark, to some famous churches there, we also went to the Graz Museum, and just walked around the city in general.

We met Alice and Elena and had lunch with them at a cool burger shop.

After that, me and Mia went up the hill to reach the Clock Tower, and we were able to see the whole city from above as the night started to fall. It was very beautiful.

We took the train home again and when we arrived home Mia showed me some more austrian and german popular songs.

At dinner we ate a sweet dish, and I think it’s so interesting how people here often eat sweet foods for dinner, when it is barely common in Portugal.

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Today at school, in german class, the german teacher gave me a task to do that was basically the same one they were doing but in english.

After german class, I went to the library with Alice and I found my english teacher, and surprisingly, he told me that he watched a video of our school, ESAG, and how he thought it was beautiful.

I went grocery shopping with Mia’s mother after school, and I noticed that austrians have a very similar pastry to “bola de berlim”, which I thought was very interesting!

Basically when we got home we just had lunch, I ate pumpkin soup, which is very traditional here, and just chilled for a bit.

After dinner, we met up with some of Mia’s friends and went to a bar. There I had the opportunity to talk to some of them, they showed me some traditional austrian music and even asked the owner of the bar to play that kind of music, including artists like Falco.

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Today, at school we had english class, we spoke a bit about US politics,  about some basic human rights and I even spoke with the teacher a bit about what we’re used to do in our english class. In biology class, i thought it was very interesting that they were learning practically the same thing that we learnt two or three weeks ago! After school we had lunch at home, we ate a traditional austrian stew. After that Mia took me to a nature preserve, we had a long walk there enjoying the nature and the river. We then went to a church on the top of the mountain, where we watched the sunset, we also saw mountains, fields, and the whole of deutschlandsberg! We left and drove around for a while and Mia showed me some traditional pretty streets in the city where a lot of restaurants and bakeries take place. We then went to the supermarket to buy some stuff and I noticed throughout the day that some austrians have a lot of english in their vocabulary, for example, they say “thank you” in english instead of german, sometimes. After that we went home. the sky above Mia’s house is very clear because they don’t even have street lights where she lives, which leads to very little light pollution. Because of that, we were able to see many stars, I even told her “We could totally see shooting stars here!”, and not even 3 seconds after my statement, a shooting star passes right where we were looking in the sky! It was such a great experience and I had a lot of fun today.

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We went to school early today so Mia could show me around a little bit. Their school is big and it has various buildings, each one regarding a certain area or course from what I understood. For example, one of the buildings in their school is directed only for cooking students. Mia also showed me the underground of their school, a place where students can hang out. It contains a lot is different paintings and graffiti’s, but it’s mainly used for the school ball.

In the classroom, some teachers greeted me and talked to me about how was the trip going. A very interesting thing that i noticed was that the students always get up when the teacher enters the classroom, as a sign of respect. Other than that I, of course, noticed that the classes are very different, not only the behaviour from the students but also the way of teaching of some teachers, for example, they could teach by spending the whole period only talking and discussing certain topics instead of focusing on the program. School is in general less strict than in Portugal.

After school we had lunch at home. When we were done eating Mia drove me, along with some of her friends, to show me around their city. I saw the castle of Deustchlandsberg, the traditional streets, and some grocerie and drug stores. Another interesting thing that I noticed was the fact that most houses look exactly the same or at least with very similar structures, as if they were built by the same architect.

Lastly, we went home, ate ice cream with pumpkin seed oil, very typical here; had dinner, a traditional dish from Austria, and just hung out for the rest of the night.