Oktoberfest

Wow.

Where the heck do I begin? I guess there's no way to say everything, although, probably by the end of this blog you'll think I have. To start out with, Munich is so nice. The air was crisp (a bit cooler) and clean. Smelled nice. The food was amazing and a lot cheaper than in Spain. The people were great too and I didn't feel like I was going to be pickpocketed everywhere I went. A lot of German's speak English, which is nice because I speak no German. It made me realize how much Spanish I do know. At least in Spain I can ask where things are, say excuse me when I bump into someone, or ask how much.

Friday started out super early. Didn't sleep too well and had to wake up super early to catch the Nitbus (night bus). I thought it got there at 5 (I swear that's what the Catalan website said) but it arrived at 5:30. Also worth mentioning, there were two clocks on the bus. The one above the driver was a minute faster than the one right below it. Hmmm....

Oh, and as I was waiting for the bus, this kid across the street in the park threw something into the air. I then realized it was a dead pigeon. I then realized that it was a wounded pigeon. I then realized that it was a perfectly healthy pigeon. He was picking up sleeping birds and tossing them. Mildy, mildly comical, but ooooookay.

I got to the airport with around 45 minutes until my flight takes off. I get my ticket, run through security, and get to my gate when they were half done with boarding. We sit on the runway for a long time, making me miss my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Munich. Oh well. I finally got there though and met up with the three ladies I was sharing a hotel with.

A cab would have been 60 €, so we got on the 40 min train that only cost 4.50€ each. We got to our hotel and checked in. We had to sneak one of the girls in because we only paid for 3 people (it was still almost $100 each. Hotels cost SO much during Oktoberfest. And they're all taken, as you'll soon see). Sneaking someone in isn't really that hard, and they don't seem to mind, actually. The massive amount of foot traffic doesn't raise any red flags for the reception people.

Here's one shot of our room
The four of us then walked around the area a bit and then headed over to where Oktoberfest was, over in Theresienwiese park (by the way, German words look the same. We tried going to a restaurant that I thought was on our street, but it was actually on a different really big S word street. I swear there was 1 letter difference in a 20 letter long word). It is a huge area. The atmosphere wasn't what I expected. It's kinda hard to write about this in a blog. I was not as pumped as others were for this weekend. I figured it's just be a bunch of drunk people. There were a bunch of drunk people, but tons of games, rides, food, some shows, etc. It had a Disney kinda feel to it at times, actually. There was even a special family area with rides and attractions for children.

Here's one picture to give you a feel for it. Just big.

And then, of course, there's the tents. I'm really not sure who started calling them tents.

Absolutely massive. So big. And there are probably around 10, but I could be way off. But that'd be my guess if I had to put money on it. We spent a lot of time in this one place called the Hofbräu Festzelt (or Hofbräu Haus for short, I guess. Shown above). I later learned it was the more popular, youthful one.

There were all kinds of cheers and chants. Well, there seemed to be about 3 though. The more popular one being
"Hhheeeeyyyy! Heeeyyy baby! [Huah-Huh] I wanna know, if you'll be my girl."
They just loved that, and it's stuck in my head BAD. There were also the standard "Da, da da da, Dah Dah. Da, da da da, Dah Dah." (if that captures it at all, I'm thrilled).

It's also crazy when thousands of people hold up their mugs and cheer at the same time. There was music, prosts (cheers), and beer everywhere (along with broken 1L mugs, or steins).
Speaking of steins, everyone wants one, but security is tight. Many people got caught trying to sneak them out (or just stumbling out with them). I however, managed to come away with three, so I'm very excited. They are big and heavy though. Goodness...

So Friday was fun just running into people and getting a feel of the area. Saturday we woke up early and I got in line with a friend. Saturday (the 2nd to last day of Oktoberfest) was big. So many people. The line was crazy. And once it started moving forward... Wow. Borderline crushed.

It was a lot of fun though. Ah, and we even rode this ride, although at night. It was the most unique looking one, and was a ton of fun. Chris, you woulda loved it. It was called High Energy and had some creepy German cartoon-ish voice talking and Michael Jackson/techno type music playing.

Man, so much went on, but it'd be a little ridiculous if I wrote about all the funny stuff. Hmm... Oh, one funny thing, I guess in Europe there's this stuff called snuff. I first ran into it on Friday night talking to a very, very drunk Aussie (who kept telling my friend and I that the Chargers and the Angles were going to win their respective sports' titles). As we were leaving, he offered us some snuff for the road. I told him it was okay and then he pulled out a tiny bottle. Inside had this.
I was like, um, no no no, that's okay. I'm good. As we walked away, however, my friend informed me that it's not cocaine. In Europe, it's this tobacco/minty thing. I've heard it described as crushed up Altoids that you sniff up your nose. I don't know why you 'd do that, but okay. I guess it "clears" your sinuses or something. I was later told more stories about drunk people (actually, they were all American women studying abroad) who thought they had done coke, only to be relieved the next day when their friends told them it was only sugar, um, stuff. Way to be, ladies.

So, Saturday night, the four of us didn't have a place to sleep (we could only get one night at our hotel). The other people we knew at Oktoberfest had already filled up their floor space. We knew this, though, and had planned on sleeping in the airport. Besides, I didn't want to spend $100 to sleep on a floor when I've got benches and an early morning flight anyway.

We had to wait for the first train for about an hour. Then we later realized we had to get off 2 stations from the airport because the train we were on branched off. Here's the station.

It was about 3am and around 50 degrees or less outside (it's an outdoor station with a waiting area that has some walls around it. You're basically outside). We had to wait for 72 minutes. Haha, it makes a good story though. We finally, finally, got to the airport and crashed on these benches. These wonderful benches.
And that's my summary of Oktoberfest. I had a journal type thing, but typing out all the stories would be a little unnecessary. I hope you enjoyed hearing about it. It was a lot of fun and nice to travel a bit. If you have any other questions and stuff, I can write some more on my next post. I'm hungry. I'm going to have a bowl of cereal.