Graz–Jan. 18, 2025

Today I went to the Murpark shopping center, mostly to see what they had there. But first, a stop at Kaiser-Josef-Platz for their..

Farmers’ Market

The Kaiser-Josef market is (at least according to their sign), the oldest farmers’ market in the country.

These were really neat-looking candles.

These are free-range eggs. Eggs are sold in packages of 10, not 12. If you do the math with an exchange rate of 1€ = $1.03, it works out to $3.94 per dozen .

I then walked back to the Jakomini-Platz and waited for the streetcar to the shopping center.

Tobacco is still a big thing here.

This tree was adopted for sponsorship by First General Insurance Inc.

Hot sweet chestnuts (Maroni in German) are very popular this time of year. The mirror-reversed text caught my eye.

Murpark

Didn’t take pictures of the inside of the mall itself; again, if you’ve seen one shopping center... They had a Thalia 🇦🇹 bookstore, where I spent a while. Almost bought a dictionary, but couldn’t find one that was exactly what I wanted. Also saw a graphic novel „Normal und die Zero Heroes 🇦🇹“, which is about a world where everyone has super-powers except the protagonist. The 26€ cost put me off, but after further thought, I may buy it next week. From the preview of the book online, it is very cleverly written, and the level of German the book uses is just about right for me.

In any event, I did find one thing to take a picture of. I seem to have this thing for noticing signs where the text is composed of partial letter forms.

Walking Around

I took the streetcar back towards downtown a couple of stops, and got off at the Merkur Arena and decided to walk back to the apartment. I didn’t get any good pictures of the arena; the sun was backlighting everything and there were traffic signs in the way.

A nearby park had this chess set

This (and the next one) are sun-damaged posters. This probably makes them look cooler than they did originally.

I liked the color.

The East Railway station

They have two-level bike racks here. If you think this looks crowded, you should see the one at the main train station. Next time I’m there with my camera, I’ll get a picture.

Graz Exhibition Hall

A restaurant that has seen better days...

Distances to different methods of travel (e-taxi, rental car, public charging, carsharing, and bike parking)

It looks like the theme for today was “things that are dilapidated”.

Bus Stops

Here’s a typical bus/streetcar stop; a green H on a yellow background. The H stands for Haltestelle (“stopping point”). The station name, in this case „Finanzamt“, is underneath.

This is a Doppelhaltestelle (“double stop”); all streetcars/buses stop only once. I think this is for a stop that serves both incoming and outbound vehicles.

Edit: I think the idea here is that, at a normal stop, if two streetcars arrive at a station one after the other, you don’t board the second one until the first one leaves and the second one pulls up to the stop. For a Doppelhaltestelle, you board the second streetcar right away; it won’t pull forward and stop again.

This station name is “Stop X”; it is an on-demand stop; boarding and alighting only in exceptional cases. What those might be, I don’t know.

Gas Prices

These are in euros per liter, and there are about 3.78 liters per US gallon. So the cheapest one works out to about $6.20 per gallon and the most expensive to $7.25 per gallon.

Signage

Herzlich (Herz = heart) Willkommen means “A cordial welcome”

On the side of all the garbage cans.

It took me a few seconds to visually parse these signs! (See answer)

Pet Festival

There was dirty glass in front of the sign; couldn’t get a good picture.

Merkur insurance logo

Advert for a cabaret show.

Logo for “Sausage Sheik“

Yay! More Fraktur! (The first letter is an A - it’s Andrägasse.) They give just the Bezirk number (5), and leave off the name.

The W looks totally ugly to me, but it seems in line with what a search for “NASA font” gives as a result.

This name for an electronics store is unusual; it’s the same as the name for the plant and heart medicine (in both English and German).

Some of these billboards feature the most whitebread people I have seen in a long time; it almost hurts to look at them.

Advert for Präbichl ski area

An advert for home loans

Jakomini

Jakomini-platz is the main switching point for the streetcar and bus lines. Here’s a sign about the man himself:

Caspar Andreas Jakomini-Holzapfel-Waasen 1726-1805

Businessman, government official. Hailing from Görz (Goricia in Italy), Jakomini was first a customs collector in the border area with Venice, then postmaster in Cilli/Celje (Slovenia), estate owner and merchant. He moved to Graz in 1788, bought the abandoned area south of the old city that up with its previously abandoned fortifications and former monasteries, on which the suburb which is named after him came into being.

Graffiti / Stickers

Reference to Greta Thunberg

Matsuto-matsuto-matsuto-matsuto (Don’t know what it means.)

Answer to traffic sign meaning: The top sign means that pedestrians and cyclists share the same lane. This is usually found on a path that serves both directions of traffic. The bottom sign means that it is not the normal “bicycles on left, pedestrians on right”, which is used for one-way traffic. (Back)