We arrived in Graz at 10:30pm last night.  So we checked into the hotel and retired for the night.  Today we went to breakfast then headed to the center of Graz to see the sites.  We toured around the old city and saw some landmarks, but the festival would not begin until the afternoon.  We then went back to the hotel to change into our dirndls. We then headed back to the festival in the old city.  We were able to see some of the opening ceremony but it had been lightly raining most of the day.  We stopped in a beer tent to get out of the rain and wind and of course had a drink. When the rain stopped we went touring the city again.  The festival gets into full swing tomorrow so some of the venues were not operational.  We did see some of the land marks and about 4pm it started to pour.  There was thunder and lightning and lots of rain. We were lucky because we were in the tourist info center.  After an hour we pulled on our ponchos and asked where to eat dinner.  We were directed to a great restaurant.  I had a blood sausage strudel- sounds awful but tastes great.  We all had a wonderful dinner and while we were eating the rain stopped so we set out sgain. We went to the main plaza where there was a lot of music and people. it was all great fun. We decided we would return to the festival when it opens at 10am and hopefully it will not rain. We take a train to Vienna after we leave the festival. I should mention it got cold. Tomorrow morning it is dupposed to be in the 50’s