It's kind of atrocious how few pictures I took. But I'll sprinkle some in here.
Friday night a friend came over for dinner and I cooked chicken cordon bleu, haricot vert, and some really overcooked rice. Then we hung out, went out to Kreuzberg...suddenly it was 5am and I was still out, only sans my sweater which was stolen from the corner I dumped it in while I was dancing. Ah, Berlin.
I woke up 2ish hours later so I could wash the dishes from the night before and pack before heading out to catch the train to München (Munich). I was splitting a multi-person weekend ticket with a guy I found through a very handy rideshare/trainshare website. Thus the ticket cost me only 18eur. Huzzah!
The train ride took 8 hours and required several transfers. I made it to Munich at 9:15pm and headed straight to the tent camp I was staying in at the Olympic Riding Stadium, about 20min S-bahn ride outside the city center. There was a rowdy party going on in the main tent but I just passed out, knowing the next day would be a long one.
Oh and it was.
Munich was beautiful and serene in the 6am morning light:
I followed a group of lederhosen and dirndl-clad revelers towards Oktoberfest, passing workers clearing massive piles of trash along the way. Soon enough...
It was overwhelming, and nothing was even open yet. I was starving hungry, so I wandered for a while trying to find food, but nobody was open. So eventually I joined a line in front of one of the beer tents, Löwen Bräu (Lion's Brew):
Once the tent was open, the lion moved its arms a bit, and drank from its stein, and made strange rumbly noises. I met a group of people outside: lots of ozzies, a canadian, and a californian. At 9am, having waited about 2 hours, they opened the doors and everyone pushed and tried their best to trample each other. Being near the front, we soon had a table, and were off. The beermaid brought us a round right away. As well as a huge hunk of bread with melted cheese on it for my empty stomach!!!
Now by a round, I mean we each had one of these:
That's 2L of beer, roughly 68oz or 8.5cups if the online converter I just used is correct.
Keep in mind: 9 IN THE MORNING.
The beermaids carry up to 10-15 of these at once. When the first round was brought, she put them all on the table, then before she would let anyone drink anything she challenged us each in turn to lift the 6 steins all at once, with one hand. I was the only girl who could do it :) I could so be an Oktoberfest beermaid. Not to mention, I finished my stein before any of the men at the table.
Things continued in this fashion, including some delicious traditional German food, until the late afternoon, when the smoke and the noise and the crowd was just too much. I took a break for a few hours, found a quiet cafe on a side street, drank some water. Then headed back into the fray of Theresienwiese, as they call the big area where Oktoberfest is held (named after the bride at the royal wedding which was the first such fest).
One thing I didn't realize about the fest is that outside the tents is just as exciting (though not as beer-y). They have a ton of amusement park rides and games and food stalls etc. I wandered around with a new friend and checked out some of the rides, which were all expensive. Among the ridiculous things we encountered were this fine specimen of German manhood:
And this fine specimen of German womanhood:
Eventually we settled on this ride:
with this ridiculous painting as part of its decorations (a male statue of liberty kissing a female statue of liberty):
and which had us sailing through the air high above Munich and was all kinds of exhilarating. After that we were ready to party again, so we went back to Löwen Bräu and some of our friends were still there at the same table! We soon got back into the beer-ing and the singing and the swaying as the oompa band played such traditional German classics as "Hey Jude." Swaying in time with 1000s of people, waving a 2L stein and singing that song counts among the highlights of my life.
We closed the tent down and after some drama getting a drunk friend home, I headed back to my little tent and fell asleep.
The next morning I got up at a more reasonable hour and met some friends from the day before for a walking tour of Munich. I took loads of pictures of architecture and they're all rather boring, so I'm not posting any here. Learned a bit about the history of the place. Beautiful buildings, lots of culture and history but I have to say for my money Berlin is more interesting.
The tour ended at a bar where you can get bottomless Bavarian stew and a liter of beer for 9eur. I ended up staying there aaaall afternoon getting drunk with ozzies. We made friends with the bartender (Dave aka pleasant dave aka super dave aka psycho dave) who gave us free drinks and took us to a legit pizza place for dinner. Then we went back to the bar. And he was foolish enough to challenge my tackling abilities. A small cut on my head and a scraped-up elbow later and he knew who was boss.
I kind of wish I had headed back to the Oktoberfest tents again but instead I just hung out at the bar for another couple hours, then back to the camp.
The next morning I hopped a rideshare back to Berlin, and five hours later I was home. This was scrawled in the bathroom in Löwen Bräu tent and I think is a good sum-up:
Beer I love you. Bier ich liebe dich.
Bis bald,
D.
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