#6 – An impromptu trip to Graz, Austria to channel my inner Arnold Schwarzenegger led to a wild weekend. Plus, a hard lesson that you can travel halfway around the world and girls will still shut you down the same way.
Austrian Brothers
Was sitting in my cushy outdoor office in Prague at about 8 o’clock on a Thursday night when I got a message from my friend Sean that he was in Graz and could get me into all the events he was going to.
It just didn’t seem in the cards. I had to work the next day and didn’t have a place to stay or a way to get there. But the one thing I’ve been telling myself for this whole crazy year is to not pass up opportunities. Figure out a way to make it work. I did. And it was well worth it.
Was in the office at 8PM and was on a bus to Austria at 10:30PM. We spent much of the day at this conference called the Fifteen Seconds Festival for “curious minds” as the site says. We came to hear Sean’s mom speak (she crushed it), but we stayed for the free beer and this strange man’s smart vibrator pitch (Vibease).
Of course, a classy dinner of schnitzel and sunsets at this unreal hilltop restaurant could only be followed by debauchery and unlimited Red Bull Vodkas at the festival post-party.
Within 5 minutes of being at the party it was very apparent that Sean and I were going to pretend we were brothers all night (we also told girls we worked for Instagram). A trick as old as time, really, and an incredibly successful tactic (I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t tried this with my own brothers yet…).
But just like back home in Boston, as the clock struck midnight (the proverbial clock works on EST, so it was 6AM our time), my carriage turned back into a pumpkin and the Austrian women grew tired. Mysterious “boyfriends” started coming up in the conversation and my hopes of landing an Austrian wife and starring in The Sound of Music II were crushed and instead, it was just “Do Re Mi Mi Mi.”
All in all though, I can’t complain. Austria was a stunner. Would love a chance to go back to ski or hike, so in the words of the most famous man to ever come out of Graz, “I’ll be back.“