Day in the life in Graz
Every day in Graz brings something new, so it can sometimes be hard to give an accurate description of what my “typical” day looks like. Especially near Christmas when we spend so much time fitting in fun outings before we all head home for Christmas. But today I’ll try to give you a fairly accurate snapshot from a Wednesday here in Graz.
So I usually try to get up from 8am onwards, but it usually tends to be closer to 9am than anything. I have a shower, grab some breakfast (usually Cornflakes or paté), then brush my teeth and get dressed. I give myself some time for immersion around now too, usually, this just means putting the TV on and watching whatever takes my fancy, or sometimes it’s going through this month’s copy of Deutsch Perfekt.
After that, I try and go on a quick walk. I never have a destination in mind, I just wander where my feet and brain take me. This is actually the perfect way to discover the city, because you end up seeing so many new things.
When I get home from the walk, I try to get some studying done. This takes maybe two hours as I try to get work done little and often as opposed to doing long study sessions once every few days. I usually just go over my homework and some of the optional exercises but if I’ve not got anything left to do, I usually take some time for Danish.
Once I’m done studying, it’s cleaning time! Our WG has a system where we all have our own little jobs to take care of and mine is making sure the bathroom and toilet are clean. It really doesn’t take me too long to do, less than an hour most of the time. This I try to do every week, but obviously, sometimes life gets in the way! Anything I don’t get to gets done over the weekend usually.
It’s about 2:40 by this time, factoring in a small break where I usually either watch TV, read, or play video games, so it’s time to head to class. On Wednesdays, I have my Grammar lesson which I love, despite hating grammar so much! I live about 20 minutes away from the building I have my Grammar lesson in, so I take the tram. The tram stop is about a three-minute walk away, so I usually leave about half an hour before my class starts. The trams are usually pretty busy, so I spend a lot of time standing, but this is the time I usually scroll through my socials and catch up on the news.
The tutorial is really more of a lecture, so I bring my laptop and take notes, but I also tend to catch up on emails while I listen to the tutor. It lasts for an hour and a half, but my tutor is very animated and is brilliant at explaining things so that we can actually visualise the grammatical process, so the time actually goes very quickly. Towards the end of the lesson, we do online exercises together as a class, which is great for putting what we’ve learnt into practice.
After class, I head home with the tram and make something to eat and watch some TV. This is kind of my downtime since my brain is already so full of German that I need a rest. I usually make something easy like pasta or a stirfry. I also do some exercises using my phone at this time, I walk pretty much every day but I try to get some bonus exercise done every day if I have the time and the energy.
My favourite day of the week is Wednesday mostly because of my Wednesday drinks I have to admit. I met another Irish guy at the end of October and he introduced me to the best pub in the city, the Dublin Road. It’s an incredibly authentic Irish pub run by two lovely Irish guys and every Wednesday they have live traditional jam sessions, so obviously I have to head there like clockwork every week. I stay out far later than I like to admit, but I have so much fun chatting with my friends and catching up with them.
When I trundle home finally, I usually go straight to bed because I have an early class on Thursday mornings. And that’s a typical day/Wednesday in my life here in Graz!
