Katie and I, in spasms of throaty sleep deprived giggles, saunter into the Udine train station in abhorrently high spirits for the situation with a single task:

Alright. How do we get back to Graz as cheaply as possible before our classes start on Tuesday morning?

We find an 8 euro train ticket to Trieste, wait the necessary 48 minutes until arrival, and then in Trieste find a 6 euro bus ticket to Ljublijana. We jaunt around the beautiful coastal town for two hours and then meander back to the bus station, snuggling in as we bumbled across the Slovenian countryside admits the sunset.

We arrive in Ljublijana with high expectations of making a connection to Graz; but to no avail. The time was 22:13 at this point, the last train to Graz having left only an hour ago. No matter, this fact could not extinguish the fledgling fires of adventure that raged within the chests of Katie and I as we figured out how to get just that much closer to Graz.

We board the train to Maribor, Slovenia, after a very friendly Slovenian husky call of “Go to platfurm 12 na-ow. You ‘ave see-ven minoots” from the wonderful ticket saleswoman. Side note: every Slovenian person I have been so fortunate to encounter I have nothing but absolute palpable love for. If you are Slovenian, I probably love you too.

We arrive in Maribor to find that our best option is to catch the 8:33am train to Graz, as the current hour was quite late. We pawn the WiFi from the Illy cafe outside the station, and find the aforementioned white shed hostel.

After a good 10 minute pounding on the plastic white door, the most pleasant and wonderful Brazilian man, clad in his pajamas, answers and escorts us to the cleanest and most comforting attic double room, thick goosey pillows and comforters beckoning us from the beds.

Despite the initial rising feelings that this could perhaps be the residence of a serial killer and indeed we might have deserved our fate to stumble so aimlessly into such a poorly executed ploy to attract desperate voyagers, Katie and I had such a wonderful grand night tucked up in our attic.

And indeed, the room was most gloriously nicer than all of the hostels in Morocco and our own respective Austrian flats combined.

We pop over to the train station the following morning, our high spirits still radiating through us. We purchase cheap tickets to Graz, have the most markedly entertaining language-barrier conversation with the cafe woman that I will never forget, and hit our beautiful Graz around 10:30.

One might imagine this unexpected turn of voyaging events to be quite horrid; indeed, it probably was but due to our high levels of infamously optimistic ignorance, we didn’t see it that way.

It was the height of adventure, train hopping from city to city, trying to get closer and closer to Graz as cheaply as possible, not having necessary obligations until Tuesday.

There was absolutely no way that our adventures could have concluded in a more appropriate fashion.