OKTOBERFEST - Munich, Germany
Munich, Germany
Let me just start this entry by saying this was one of the best weekends of my life. For everyone reading, if you ever get an opportunity to go to Oktoberfest, you will not regret the trip over there. Munich is a beautiful place and Germans are really awesome. Alright I know a lot of people have been waiting on this entry so lets get started.
Thursday night we got on a bus at 8:00 pm and were due to arrive in Munich by 8:00 am. Basically it was necessary to sleep on this bus ride. This was bad news for me because so far I have barely slept on these bus rides. My friend who I was sitting with though gave me a benadryl and it knocked me out. I barely remember this bus ride. Apparently we got stuck in 2 hours of traffic so I'm glad I slept through that. Even the stops we made on the way are a total blur. It's a good thing I slept though because as soon as we got there our day started. We got our first beers at noon. Yea remember that traffic...it set us back a good few hours so we got there at noon. Anyway we got our beers and checked into the campsite. This place was huge. There were hundreds of tents at this place and so many drunk people. We ran into this kid who is studying in Madrid who we knew and he was wasted. Honestly prepare yourselves for the rest of this entry because I'm not going to sugarcoat any drunkenness. I know it's going to be a little weird for some of my family to read (my parents) because they aren't used to hearing these kinds of things from me yet but stick with me. So lets move onto my cute little tent. It was so small. Inside of it were literally 2 pool floats aka our air mattresses. They fit in this tent side by side with no extra space. We also got a sleeping bag. After settling into our tent we bundled up for the chilly/drizzly day we had ahead of us in Germany.
We took the next bus toward the festival. It picked us up and dropped us off at the bus station where you could walk to the festival from. Walking into Oktoberfest was completely surreal. Huge beer tents one after another had huge crowds of people gathered in front of them. All of the food looked and smelled so good. Since we hadn't eaten since the day before the first thing we did was get food. I got a chicken sandwich. It was amazing. I don't even know how to describe the amazingness of this sandwich. Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten in 24 hours but this sandwich was legit. Germans make some good chicken. We walked through most of the festival with our food. We wanted to see everything before deciding what to do. We finally decided on a beer tent where we ran into our guy friends from Florence. We stood in line to get into this place for about 2 hours. We met some really interesting people in line though. There were some really funny guys in front of us. This one guy was wearing a German hat and had a mustache. He was my favorite. These people were cutting in front of us and he kept telling them not to cut the line but they were just ignoring him so he started to use as many different languages as he could. It was one of those had to be there moments but this guy was hilarious trying to speak German. It's even more funny because this guy was German and he spoke more English than German. Apparently this is a very common thing in Germany. German is so hard and so many people in Germany already speak English as a second language so many Germans just learn English. Weird I know, but have you ever tried to read German. Some of their words are as long as English sentences and their pronunciations are ridiculous. I learned 4 words in German. I can say ja pronounced like yah (yes), keine pronounced like nine (no), danke (thank you), and prost (cheers). That was literally all I needed though. Especially prost.
So after waiting 2 hours to get into this tent we gave up and decided to just sit outside in the Beer Garden. It's the same thing as inside basically just without the atmosphere. It stopped drizzling at this point anyway and was pretty nice out at this point. We got our first steins and the beer was so good. This was at the Lowenbrau tent by the way if anyone knows German beers. It's the one with the Lion/Dragon thing on it. We also met some awesome people out in the beer garden. The German girls sitting next to us were so friendly and talked to us a lot. We even took some pictures with them. There was also a group of guys who were extremely intrigued that we were Americans. There were not many Americans there believe it or not. I would have to say the majority of people there were Germans who go every year. There were a lot of other Europeans too but the only Americans I saw were students. That wasn't what I expected. Anyway we took tons of pictures with these guys and of each other drinking our beer. We just thought it was so funny how huge the steins were. For those of you who have never had one, a stein holds about 3 and 1/2 beers. They're huge and really heavy when they are full. I still can't believe how the waitresses were able to carry like 10 of them at once. These ladies were seriously jacked. We were told to tip them well because they deserve it after carrying those around for hours. So the steins were 10 euros each including tip which was a perfectly fair price for how much you got. We stayed at this place for a while until our Florence friends showed up again and we walked around with them for a while. It was starting to get late and the festival was so pretty all lit up. We ate some more food. I got french fries and these sugar coated almonds that were amazing. We tried to get into another tent but it was impossible since it was so late. We sat in another beer garden and ordered another round of steins here. Right now I am going to apologize for the lack of detail in my description for the rest of the night. I had a lot of beer.
At this point of the night I was with 3 of my girl friends and one of my guy friends. We lost most of our group earlier in the day. Some of my friends don't like to drink as much or spend money and some of them really don't drink at all. They participated and at least tried some beer or split one with someone else but they weren't into the all day drink marathon that is commonplace for most Oktoberfest visitors. Being with a small group was easier though. We found a seat easily and stayed here a while. When we were done and it started to get late we figured we would head out. We were going to have an early morning the next day. The plan was to wake up super early so we could get into one of the tents. Plus everyone really needed sleep. Again I was so glad I slept on the bus. It was too late that night for private buses to the campsite so we used the subways which were extremely easy to navigate. Probably so all the drunk people could use it. We got back to the campsite and passed out. Those stupid pool floats sucked but I slept alright. It was absolutely freezing though. I was even wearing long pants, socks, and a hoodie inside a sleeping bad with an extra blanket. We froze that night. The beer knocked me out though. I was out so cold that I didn't even hear someone fall into our tent. In the middle of the night apparently someone fell on top of my friend in the tent with me. She even said she yelled and pushed him off but I slept right through it. Glad no one fell on me.
The next morning we woke up at 5:30 so we could be the first to the showers. We got ready and took the first bus to the festival. We made our way to the biggest tent: Hofbrau. It's the most popular and supposedly the best beer tent at Oktoberfest. We got there at 8:00 am and they let people in around 9:30. When they opened those doors it was like a riot. Everyone charged the doors and we just got shoved forward. My friends and I just all hung onto each other and actually found a table inside. Hofbrau beer was my favorite all weekend. It was so tasty. I got 2 steins while I was in that tent. We stayed in there until 4:00. It was raining a lot harder that day so we didn't want to leave. Being in this tent was the most fun part of the entire weekend. We were completely immersed in the festival while we were in there. We sat next to some really nice German girls who talked to us and shared their pretzels with us. The pretzels were amazing by the way. Then there was a live band playing authentic German songs. Mostly drinking songs. Like the song that I'm pretty sure is called Prost (cheers if you remember). Then there was this one song that had a dance so we all stood up on the benches and the girls next to us taught us what to do. That song is still stuck in my head. It was so much fun. Then every 5 minutes someone would stand up on a table and chug the rest of their stein and the entire tent would cheer them on. If they did it too slow or couldn't finish they would get booed or even get stuff thrown at them but if you finished the entire tent erupted in cheering. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I kept looking around trying to take everything in and still couldn't believe where I was. I will never forget that experience.
So by 4:00 after spending over 6 hours drinking in this tent we left. Honestly we were all starting to feel pretty hungover. Remember my first beer was at 10:00 AM after drinking all day the day before. It was exhausting. We decided to go take a break and found the nearest Starbucks. We all got coffee and no lie we sat in Starbucks for 2 hours. I felt like death. Besides the drinking all I was eating was carnival food so that didn't help. After those few hours though we felt energized again and went back to the festival. It was getting dark but it finally stopped raining. It turned out to be a really warm night too. We walked through all the carnival rides this time. Germans have the most bad ass carnival rides. There was this one where the whole this rotated upside down and the seats spun and this fountain of water was underneath you and the people would hang over the water. It was the most intense thing I've ever seen at a carnival. Then they had roller coasters, those swings that fly in a circle, and that tower that drops you really fast. I really wanted to go on a ride but it was probably best that I didn't. I probably would have gotten sick. It was so fun to walk around though and just see it all. There must have been 100 different rides. No joke this place was that big. Best party ever.
We ended our last night at the festival getting some more food and picking up some souvenirs. Not going to lie the thought of snagging one of the beer steins crossed all of our minds. We didn't though. It would have been annoying having to bring that big thing back to the U.S. anyway. We made our way back to the campsite which was in total after party mode at this point. The beer at the campsite was really cheap and they had a DJ playing music all night. We hung out there for a while and when we were about ready to pass out we went to our tents.
Now most of you are probably thinking this has been such a positive post. Everything must have gone so smoothly. Oh no. Wait for it...our tent flooded. Remember that rain? I found my suitcase half way submerged into a puddle of water inside the tent. Our pillows were wet and half of my clothes in my suitcase were soaked. Awesome right. At least we had pool floats to sleep on...
Honestly though it was just so hilarious that we were that unlucky. It became material for jokes the rest of the weekend and everyone agreed that it was still worth it. Camping was so much fun. Staying in a hotel isn't half as cool as camping at Oktoberfest. I wouldn't have had it any other way. We slept better that next night anyway. It was a little warmer and we took bundling up a lot more seriously. I slept in socks, 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, and a hoodie. Camping really isn't my favorite thing in the world. The other thing was the bugs. I found a spider in my suitcase and a pincer bug in my sleeping bag. It was gross. I was so happy to pack up and get out of our drowned tent.
It was truly an amazing weekend. I'm not done yet though. We didn't go to Oktoberfest on Sunday though. Two days was about all we could handle. We were able to take a trip to Dachau concentration camp. It was free which was great and it was a short bus ride away. It was a surreal experience. We didn't take a guided tour or anything but there was plenty of information posted along the way. We stayed for about 2 hours just taking it all in and I don't think we talked to each other once. I never thought I would ever visit a place like that. It was disturbing and fascinating. The things we saw were so real. Reading about mass death is one thing. We looked at pages of paper stacked thicker than a phone book of the names of everyone who died there. There was a tomb containing the ashes of all the unidentifiable dead. We saw the real shower facilities and sleeping areas. It was sick, but it was a really powerful experience. I'm glad I got the chance to go to a place like that. Most historical places I have visited in my life and on this trip have been famously revered places all with positive associations. Dachau was a very different experience. I think it is important to see history that we should be proud of but it's also important to see what we should not be proud of. There was this wall mural that really stood out to me. It said the words "Never Again" in different languages. It was one of the few beautiful things there. There were several art pieces installed dedicated to the people who suffered and died there.
After leaving we wanted to get something to eat and try to see the rest of Munich before we had to leave. If I didn't say it before I will say it again. I absolutely loved Munich. It was so cute. The buildings were so pretty. We saw this one church that was absolutely amazing. I felt so comfortable walking the streets there. The German people were so nice. Everyone we met that weekend was so friendly and welcoming. It was just a very different experience than I expected. I had never been to that part of Europe before and was pretty nervous about it. Between the language barrier I expected and being used to how Italians treat foreigners I had no clue what we would be in for. It was actually one of the easiest trips we've been on so far though. We could speak English to everyone, we used the subways to get around no problem, and we were embraced and accepted by everyone we met. Sharing that whole experience with my friends was amazing.
The weekend had to come to an end though and we got back on the bus bound for Florence. The bus ride took even longer than the way there. Our bus driver stopped 5 times on the way. First he was late, then he had to use the bathroom, then something on the bus broke, then he had to stop for 45 minutes to rest. In Italy there is a law that bus drivers must stop for 45 minutes after driving for 4 hours. We had to stop twice for this reason because he took over 8 hours to get us back. One really good thing about the ride back though was driving through Austria. It was actually light out this time so we got to see how amazing the views were. Austria is absolutely gorgeous. It has big mountains covered with green grass and trees. Houses were scattered on the hills and perched on top of cliffs. The mountains were so high that their peaks went into the clouds. I wish I was able to take better pictures of the ride through the mountains but we never got to get off the bus.
Now I am back in Florence and my mid terms start next week. I'm glad I got a nice vacation before having to work all week. After I finish this blog and do my laundry it's just homework all week. Yes I actually have homework and tests and projects. Like I've said before it's not a total vacation over here. This week of work is totally going to be worth it though because I leave on my 10 day trip around Europe October 17th! That's in 9 days! Then as soon as I get back my parents are visiting me here in Florence. My time here is going by so fast. I'm enjoying every minute of it though!
Also another quick update. My laptop is fixed! Hopefully my spelling and grammar in these entries improve. I always have a lot to say though so I type fast. Also I can now skype from my laptop and upload all my pictures to Facebook! I will be slowly posting my pictures starting from the beginning of my trip over the next few weeks. I have like 2000 pictures so be patient. That's about it for now.
Ciao :)