DAY FIVE
My roommate’s alarm clock is a kind of physical and mental torture that says the time and invite you to stand up with all the gentleness that a metallic German voice can have! I thought that it was around 7.30 a.m. so basically it meant that I had to wake up because today was the day of excursion in Graz. Going to have the usual soft breakfast (consist in three ham and cheese sandwiches, Nutella, juice and coffee) I was giving the good morning to people lifting up the eyebrow without being able to talk to anybody. Afterwards we reached Deutschlandsberg train station and I realized to have the gift of the speaking and I started to interact and also think about how to end my last daily report. We arrived in Graz like a group of teenager in a school trip and I really started to enjoy the funny atmosphere that it was created spontaneously as some of us started to bullshitting and laugh while we were walking to the our meeting place.
We had a meeting with local youth worker who some of them are disabled. They shared with us their experiences and what’s going on in Austria in the field of inclusion. It was a meaningful moment where the feelings also were deeply involved. As our friend Zivile from Lithuania said:
“I think it was very good the timing of our meeting with these people because the first days of the project worked like a preparation. It was very meaningful to meet people who deal every day with the issues related to the disability. It touched my heart deeply to understand what kind of problems they have to do what I generally can do easily. About the project I can say that personally I was happy to have the opportunity to share every day with some disable people, and I appreciate a lot the funny atmosphere and the fact that it was completely normal to deal with them in any activity we did.”
The other part of the day it was free time in Graz. We started moving together to find a place where eat something. Our friend Johannes, who lives in the city, led us through the streets of the centre and we reached a very peculiar place where we ate like tomorrow never comes. Who the hell said that Austrian food isn’t good? By the way, after have overfilled our stomach we moved and started a short sightseeing jumping from the castle to the river, while the rain started to fall and made everything even more interesting. I was almost starting to digest my launch when I realized that it was 6 pm, that practically meant we have to eat again… Jesus, we had the meeting for the dinner! The place and the food where great, and it was impossible for me to not eat everything. At a certain point I started to think to be like a farm animal: they were filling me and in a while I will be cooked!
I had a conversarion with Victoria from Bulgaria about our free day and her impression in general:
“The morning touched me a lot, especially one of the disable guy we met. I felt like he had a lot of things to share and a lot of will to do it. About the free time in Graz I think it’s important give to participants the chance to discover a foreign city, it gives you better feedback about another culture. What I think about the project in general is that I appreciated a lot that the coordinators asked our opinion every day after the sessions and tried to adapt the program to our needs.”
Well, it was time to come back to Deutschlandsberg. We took the train all together and it was incredible for me how much energy people still had. I was wasted and some of them were laughing and making some jokes and funny games with a plastic gun filled of water. No chance to take a nap on the train otherways I would have been an easy target. After the train arrived, we walked to the hostel. We were such a great group!!! Pity that we are already almost at the end of the project…
Daniele
Vicolocortini 