Austria: Day 3

Today began with shopping. Compared to Denmark, Graz seemed so cheap! So I spent a reasonable amount of money and came away with quite a few things. I was pleased. Then I went to a palace on the outskirts of Graz called Schloss Eggenberg. It's built to resemble the universe, with a planetary garden, four towers facing the four directions, 24 state rooms, 52 windows, and some others I can't remember. The coolest part was the peacocks! I walked up the long pathway and there was a peacock just wandering around the grass! After I took a ton of pictures and walked on, I realized there were at least two dozen of them, just roaming around the grounds, flaunting their feathers and making a weird sound. I've never heard a peacock call before! There was an albino peacock as well! It was beautiful, totally white, completely amazing. I explored the grounds and found a little grotto in a niche of the plaza at the center of the palace. It was made of a porous rock and decorated with designs made of seashells. There was a fountain in the center, and the whole thing reminded me of the sea. I liked it a lot. Then I took the tour of the state rooms, which had some of the original sumptuous decor of the 17th and 18th centuries. The rooms were all full of paintings - some set into the ceiling, some put up on the walls, many of them depicting gory disgusting scenes of history or mythology. I enjoyed it a lot, though. Afterwards, I went to a little museum in the back of the palace. Mostly it was coins, with a little pottery and some weaponry, but they also had a mummified head displayed with a mummified falcon & baby crocodiles alongside a sarcophagi. It was awesome!!!! Don't know why it was in Austria, but who cares?

After my trip to the palace, I took a little nap and then had a really nice dinner. The waitress was in traditional Austrian dress - it was kinda funny, but apparently it's normal. I saw lots of waitresses at different restaurants in these dresses, and they were even in shop windows alongside normal women's business suits. So dinner was great, then I went to see the Opera House. It was very nice. I liked that it was intricate and decorated on every side, not just the front entrance. There was a large wire statue nearby that looked a lot like the Statue of Liberty. Not sure what that was about.