Munich, Germany

OKTOBERFEST

Normally I separate my posts into locations and then display my pictures but I think that it is only fitting that I tell my Oktoberfest story from beginning to end. This is a long one, sorry.

On Friday, my fellow intern, Arjun, and I departed to Munich. For those of you who don’t know already, I think Arjun is very immature and annoying. He is nice, sure, but on the whole I would rather travel by myself. This was one trip, however, that I though it would be beneficial to have a companion. No one wants to go to Oktoberfest alone.

We arrived at the festival grounds at 8:30 Saturday morning. On weekends, the beer tents can fill up as early as 11:00 am so it is important to get there early. There are about 10 tents, and each of them can fit upwards of 8,000 people. As you can imagine, it can get quite crazy. We got into one of the tents at 9:00 and started looking for a seat. Anjun was asking all around if there was space for the two of us. He was very excited. Me, on the other hand, knew we would get a seat and saw no need to act crazy. He was jumping over the long benches and standing up on them in order to get to the other side of the aisle. When he was up on one of the benches, it toppled over, Arjun falling down as well. He got up and started yelling. “MY ARM. I THINK IT IS DISLOCATED! IT HURTS!”. Two security guards came to the rescue and led him out of the tent. I tried to follow him but he told me to stay and to enjoy the day.

Awkward me didn’t know what to do. Everyone there was with a group and were having fun. I walked around aimlessly in the tent for 15 minutes before leaving to explore the rest of the festival grounds.

    

As you can see, it was not very busy yet. Also, no one was outside because everyone was in the tents. The festival grounds were huge. Like I said, there were about 10 big tents. Along with this, there were 10 little beer tents, countless food stalls, and carnival rides and games galore. I was surprised by how family friendly it was. After feeling bad for myself about my situation I realized, “I am at Oktoberfest and I am going to have a good time!” With this mindset, I went into a couple of tents to try and find a good group of people to sit near. I ended up going back to the one we went to in the morning (blue ribbons).

 

 

I sat with three people from Guatemala, two of which were working in Europe. They were very friendly. We ended up taking the whole time that we were in there. We all ordered some food (I got pork with potato dumplings) and a beer. The beer glasses were HUGE! One whole liter of beer! It was very tasty. There were also four Italian guys that sat right next to us. We all had a good time singing along to the live music and observing the very drunk people around us. (This was at 11:30 in the morning). The musicians mostly played traditional German songs but there were a few random ones like Sweet Home Alabama and Country Road.  I can’t upload videos to the blog, but boy I wish I could. We sat there for a while enjoying our beer but eventually the waitress came and told us she had to give our table to some other people that had reservations. We only had 15 minutes and all of us had half a beer left! We all said “Prost!” (cheers!) and drank our beers as quickly as we could muster. It was a great morning/afternoon spent with some lovely strangers.

  

After that experience I grabbed a pretzel, walked around for a little, and then sat down on a lawn. This lawn was now occupied buy drunk kids that were passed out on the grass. You can see how many more people there were at the festival now that it was past noon. (The third picture in the second row is a carousel bar)

    

 

  

After walking around once more, debating whether to spend 5 Euros to go on a ride, I sat down again on the lawn. A German girl next to me asked if I was waiting for someone. We got to talking and then she invited me to come along with her and her two friends. I said yes, of course. All of the tents were closed to capacity at this point (It was probably 3:00) but we managed to sneak our way into a beer garden. The kids I was with were so friendly. We ended up spending the rest of the night together; they even bought me some of my drinks! Along with beer, I tried Federweiße, which is fermented grape juice. My lord it was so good. I had a really good time with them, even though the place was crowded. The trips to the bathroom lasted 30 minutes. Those 30 minutes were spent in line pressed up against people in a little hallway. It gave us an opportunity to talk to even more people. One German guy had a bet with his friend that he would get to the bathroom first. An Australian girl and I found someone who looked like Russel Crowe. A man from Brooklyn recognized my accent and we ended up talking about the good ole East Coast. He was vacationing in Germany for 2 weeks. It was his first time ever in Germany and happiness was exuding off of his face. It was such an amazing time.

  

I left around 7:30, after all it was an early day. I walked around the grounds one last time. I am very happy, in a twisted way, that Arjun had to leave. If he did not, I would have never had this great time with all of the nice people that I met.

    

MUNICH

On Sunday I walked around Munich. I saw the musical clock go off at noon and observed a lot of beautiful architecture. I also went into four churches. One of them was the most beautiful one I have ever seen in my life. It was small but so beautifully adorned. There was also a really weird Oktoberfest Barbie display for an eyeglass store. All of these wonderful things can be found below. And thank you again for taking the time to read my blog. I appreciate it!

   

  

 

       

One a side note, I woke up at 2:45 Monday morning to see the supermoon eclipse. My pictures are bad but it was so beautiful.

 

 

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