Munich
Trip Start
May 15, 2006
1
66
71
Trip End
Sep 29, 2006
Munich,
Germany
Sunday, September 17, 2006
I started my time in Munich by checking into one of the nicest hostels I have stayed at so far. The Meininger City hostel in Munich is run like a hotel with a bathroom and tv in every room and it is cleaned daily(something most hostels in Europe dont do). It is also centrally located and, more importantly, it is only a 5 minute walk from the main Oktoberfest fair grounds. I got to the hostel the night before the opening day of Oktoberfest and spent my first night checking in and then eating dinner with one of my roommates at the beer hall across the street
Beer Beer Beer Beer
. I wanted to have an early night with the opening of Oktoberfest the next day but that idea quickly went out of my head when I walked through the door of this authentic beer hall and met two fellow Huskies. We spent the night having a couple liters of great Augustiner beer and eating sausages and pretzels. I was having a blast and Oktoberfest hasnt even started yet!The next morning I woke up early and had breakfast with the girl from my room before we both headed out at 830am in hopes of finding a seat at a table in the beer tents. We heard you had to get their early and those rumors were correct. We got to the fair grounds almost 3 hours before they tapped the first keg and still couldnt get a spot inside. We met with the two huskies from the day before and spent the first 3 hours of the festival waiting for the first beer to be served with making conversation with anyone and everyone around us. It is so much fun to sit at these big tables surrounded by people that are all as excited for the festival as you are.
Finally, the keg is tapped, the people start going wild and the first beer is served. I see the women carrying 12 steins at a time and I am blown away. You see pictures and hear stories but until you see it in real life, it is hard to believe
Ben and Chris
. I cant imagine how much weight that must be for those women(most of whom could probably kick my butt at arm wrestling) to carry around all day. Yeah, that was really cool.So we start drinking at 12pm and I dont leave the fairgrounds until 11pm. What happens between that time is nothing but fun and revelry. I dance with locals, sing the beer songs, meet tons of nice Munich folk, get my butt whooped in arm wrestling by a 60 year old woman, take tons of pictures, eat pretzels bigger than my head, eat meters of sausage, and yes, drink a bit of beer. During the day, I split up from all the people I went with just to meet back up with them 10 times throughout the day while also meeting tons of locals and just having fun. I knew Oktoberfest would be a good time but I never thought it would be this much fun.
The one downfall of the day was when I got home at 11pm to find my memory card was almost full. Unfortunately, in my attempt to delete all of the photos I had already loaded onto my IPOD, I ERASED ALL MY PICTURES. So I have none of the really cool pictures from my first day of Oktoberfest which almost led me to spike my camera in disgust. That really sucked but I have three more days of Oktoberfest and Munich to replenish my lost photos and although I wont have my first day, I imagine most of the days from here out should be almost the same
Cool Hats
.Ill update more when I actually have pictures and more stories to tell.
Day 2
Day two was, again, just a blast. I met up with the two guys from Seattle and we decided to check out the inside of the tents. The first day we sat outside with a bunch of families and did a more traditional style day with local Germans. Day 2 was spent with lots more tourists and young people and was much different than day one.
We first went to the Hofbrauhaus to find ourselves overwhelmed by the mass of drunk people at 12pm. Did these people even go to bed or did they just stay up and drink until then. The atmosphere is like nothing I have ever experienced. The band is playing, people are dancing and singing, they are throwing beer everywhere, and everyone is pretty much making an ass of themselves. There were a lot of local German young people around but not much in the was of older folks.....hmmm....I wonder why?
We stayed there and sang the songs and ate pretzels and met lots of nice folk before getting hungry for real food and we left outside
Day 3 Friends
. Day two was less crowded and so you didnt feel bad leaving your table to walk around because you knew that you could get new seats at a different table when you wanted to sit back down. On day one, if you got up, there was no sitting back down. We had some more sausages(pretzel and sausage is what I have been living on for 3 days now) and then headed to a more relaxed tent for a little break. Well, it started with a relaxed feel but that was just because the band was taking a break. Once the bad started back up, it was more dancing and singing.We spent the rest of the night there and met tons of more nice people and again, we just had a good time. It is hard to explain how much fun Oktoberfest if you havent been there and as much as I want to see the rest of Munich, I think I will find it tough to spend a day walking around town when I know I could be at Oktoberfest. My plan was to take today away from the festival but I am going there again today and more than likely tomorrow as well.
Day 3 and 4
My goal for day 3 or 4 was to take a bike tour or explore the city but after all the fun I had the first two days, I just couldnt pass up another day at Oktoberfest for walking around and checking out a town I had already seen twice(with previous tours)
Drenched with Beer
. I spent both days hanging out with the two guys, James and Ben from the UW, as well as tons of other locals and tourists that we met at the tents. After the first weekend at Oktoberfest, it calmed down a lot during the day. You could walk into any tent and easily find a table until about 4pm but after there, it was as packed as usual. On day three, it was about the same story as the previous days. We met tons of people, danced on tables, sung songs whose words we didnt know(yeah, hey, blah blah, yeah, hey....) and generally had a good time. Day four, we sat down at a table only to have two CUTE Swiss girls come and join us. We spent the day with them and generally had the same good time as the days before.In total, Oktoberfest was as good a time as I have ever had in my life. I dont know if I have ever had more fun and I could definately see myself coming back again. There is not a place in the world where people are as friendly and fun loving and welcoming as there(the copious amounts of beer might have something to do with that) and I think it is something that everyone has to do at some point in their lives. I could see myself coming back there again just for the festival, which says a lot because there hasnt been a place or event in Europe that I could see traveling all the way to Europe for just one thing. After five days in Munich, I couldnt handle much more but what I did experience changed my life for the better.
Now off to Berlin to recover my strenght and head down the back stretch of my trip.
