Shopping in Graz

Carla and I went for a short shopping trip to Graz, Austria yesterday. It took us about two and a half hours driving to get there. Not bad.

The thing about traveling in Europe is that you have to cross country borders (well, at least you do if you live outside EU). Our closest border with the EU is Slovenia, so you never know what kind of difficulties you are going to run into when you drive up to a border agent.

This time, when the Slovenian border guard saw our Canadian passports, he asked for Carla's driver's license (as she was the one driving). After seeing that she had a Canadian driver's license, he went on about how Carla needs an International Driver's Permit to drive in the EU. According to him, "Canada has different categories of vehicles so the license is not valid in EU." Whatever, someone needed to feel important. I used my Canadian personality, profusely apologizing in Croatian (as he was not comfortable speaking English). I said that we did not know about this rule, so sorry for our ignorance, where could we get an International Driver's Permit (IDP), and that we will do this as soon as we get back. After uttering one more threat that next time we won't be allowed to drive into Slovenia without an IDP, we were let into Slovenia. Wow, they just can't live and let live.
Now, for the more relaxed part of the trip. We arrived at Centre West shopping centre, which had a large Interspar (Loblaws/Superstore -equivalent) store attached to the mall. Nice mall, two stories, nothing too fancy but decent stores. IKEA was located in the same area, so we walked over to checkout the selection. This IKEA was a lot bigger than the one in Ottawa. Different styles and colours. More conservative, as that is the sense I got about Austrians during my half-day stay there.
After shopping, we visited downtown Graz. It's a nice little town with a beautiful square. An amazing collection of buildings rounded out the square. A brass band was in the square playing classical music, roasted chestnuts were available on one corner, and bratwurst (sausages) could be had 10 different ways. There were quite a few stores with beautiful clothing. All custom made, one-of-a-kind dresses.
We walked around for about an hour and a half and then we headed home. In another 2.5 hours we were home. What a fun day-trip!