Oktoberfest in Munich

If you're making a list of things that are awesome and ridiculous on planet Earth, and Oktoberfest in Munich isn't on that list, then you, sir or madam, are a terrible list maker.  I know because I went there this past September and also because I make a lot of lists.

The adventure started early because evidently when you fly from California to Germany, you WILL experience stress during that horrific day+ of traveling.  I flew from SF to DC, then to Amsterdam, then to Munich, and each and every plane had some form of delay, which is always awesome when you have layovers in foreign countries.  There was not a SINGLE airport in which I was not sprinting.  Somehow, I ran across the fucking mile that is the Amsterdam airport in time to make my flight to Munich by the skin of my teeth.  And then I figured out the train situation to the Air BNB just outside Munich.  Thankfully I was hopping onto the pre-made travel plans of a responsible person, the one and only Jimmy McCormack aka Jizzle McC.  He, his wife Tassi, and his friend Nick had arrived the day before on the first day of Oktoberfest, and were on their way to not-sobers-ville as I arrived into the city.  Once I met up with them (how did that even HAPPEN without cell phones???), we were on our way into the Oktoberfest grounds to enjoy the remainder of the day with delicious German beer.
Now, weekends get CRAZY crowded, especially at night, and this being Caturday late afternoon, we had zeroish chance of getting into one of the tents.  We were insanely lucky to find space at a table for the four of us outside the Hofbrau Haus Biergarten.  So we promptly sat down and let the beer flow like... beer.

The crew and the random German guy that we didn't know at the end of our table

Baby's first Oktoberfest beer (you can tell because I'm not a mess)

There are literally people vomsing and peeing and passing out all over out the back of the tent.  Weekends are a mess.

So essentially you sit down, and when the sturdy, strong-shouldered beer serving ladies arrive, you just tell them the number of beer liters you want.  Each tent only has one kind of beer - their Oktoberfest beer - and they only come in one size - a liter.  So you just order in numbers.  And if you want food, get ready for the BEST FUCKING FOOD OF YOUR SHORT, SWEET LIFE.  Fried pork hunks, gigantic pretzels, and friend halves of chicken.  The smell alone has been known to drive men insane.  So unbelievably delicious.  I was essentially surviving off pretzels during my stay in Munich (they are everywhere and are the cheapest thing around).  So anyway we had a few liters and then called it a night since the tents were too crowded to get into late at night and the biergartens were shutting down.

I did manage to sneak into one of the tents during a "language miscommunication." This is Haufbrau Haus and it is enormous.

On Sunday we avoided the crowds and rented a car in order to check out the Alps of Bavaria.  I was lucky enough not to be hungover that morning.  Nick was not.  That's how it goes though.  Enjoy those windy mountain roads!
We went from small town to small town, exploring beautiful countryside and eating great food.  If there's one thing to take away from Bavaria it's that they are hyper efficient wood stackers.

wtf, that's the most precise woodstacking I've ever seen

It's actually kind of terrifying in a way

We were able to go to the Neuschwanstein Castle, which of course is one of the castle Disney based a movie castle of.  Probably because it's gorgeous and has crazy turrets all over the place.  It was a nice little walk through the woods to see it.

Do you know what it's like to ask a complete stranger to take photos several times because the first ones aren't good?  Tassi does.

Someone said "I like that you're both leaning the same way." My response was "the camera was tilted."

Gravity is not the same in Germany

meh

Dibs 6th window on the west side of the northwest turret!

One of several courtyards I think

Are you freaking kidding me?

SO GERMAN

On our way back into the city we stopped for even more Bratwurst and beer at a local brewery.  We were saving our big Oktoberfest Days for Monday and Tuesday, so we had an early night in order to prepare our bodies.
Monday morning we explored the city a bit, climbing some towers and walking through a few different plazas.  It's a beautiful city; I wonder what it's like when the Oktoberfest tourists aren't all in town.

Dinobombing in Munich

What are we even looking at

Panorama from the top of the church tower

They ALWAYS have to do construction on buildings when I'm visiting

So after sufficient touristy stuff it was on to the festival.  We wanted to go around to all the tents first to see all the decorations before we decided on one to spend the day in.  The way the tents work is that you can only be served if you're sitting at a table, and table space fills up early.  Like 2pm early.  So you have to claim a spot earlier in the day.  But all the tents are gorgeous and enormous, fitting between 3,000 and 10,000 people each.  It's just surreal.

Checking off one of my "Under 30" list items

This is quite literally how they bring the beer into the Oktoberfest grounds

These "tents" are just ridiculous

IT JUST KEEPS GOING

We ended up staying at Augusteiner today

The Augusteiner Tent

The tents are such a blast.  You become good friends with the random strangers around you and inevitably stand on your benches all singing with the band.  Every 20 minutes they play the "Prost" song, which means "cheers."  It's incredibly simple and FORCES everyone to keep drinking, because if it's one thing the German's hate, it's sober people.
So as the day went on, we ended up having probably 6 liters each, along with delicious food.  And then holy crap we randomly bumped into a Tufts friend, who sat down at OUR TABLE out of all the tents and hundreds of tables per tent.

Obligatory two liters of beer photo

And Dodgeball Steve randomly finds us!

Things got out of hand early

Um... so LATER when I start remembering things again...

It's just a really pretty festival area

Ok so Tuesday started and I did NOT feel 100% to say the least.  Today we had planned to take the train all the way out of the city and do a short hike to a little monastery in the countryside.  A really pretty church and a brewery - that sounds pretty freaking unique.  Unfortunately the train ride was doing horrific things to my digestive tract.  Two stops from the end, things started churning a bit too much, and to make a long story short I dropped a serious Barf NOT on the train, but on the train platform one stop away from where we wanted.  While this happened, my train (and incidentally all the people I know) left without me as I voms'd, so I had to wait for the next one.  Fun times.  The hike up to the monastery was actually really nice and the fresh air certainly helped.  The church was really nice, and the brewery was full of amazing beer and German food.  Sadly, the smells of these foods was too much for my frail stomach, and I dropped yet another barf.  But then I was good to go for beer and pork.

This is the place you want to spend your morning after dropping a serious Oktoberfest barf on the train out of the city

Back in the city, Tassi wasn't interested in another Oktoberfesting (intriguing that someone would go to Oktoberfest if they didn't like beer, but hey I'm the guy who bought tickets the week before the festival, what do I know), so it was just the three of us off to the Paulaner tent.  And it was a magical evening.  We were Prosting like champs and spent 90% of our time standing on our benches, singing with new friends from all over the place.

A liter is a lot but it certainly goes quick

New friends made the night pretty damn fun

This is actually from Monday but I'll be damned if I put it in the correct spot in the photo timeline

So that was that.  We survived Oktoberfest.  LUCKILY I stashed one day of vacation for traveling to Switzerland to visit Zurich!  A city that is as expensive as it is beautiful.  BONUS FEATURE: Emily and Chris live there, so we were able to at least have some tour guides (partially) to show us a bit of the town!  Well when they weren't at work.  And I sadly selected a Jewish holiday as the one day I visited, so they were both busy at night.  But still it was great seeing them for a little, and they provided a place to sleep so that was pretty awesome too!  Hey did you know they don't use Euros in Switzerland?  I learned that... IN Switzerland.  That was a fun surprise.
We toured around a very pretty city during the day and had some great recommendations for bars and restaurants at night!  And we FINALLY got that Doner Kebab that I had been craving for days.

SO EUROPEAN

Yay!  Meeting friends in other countries is great!

I'm not even sure I know what this is

Awwwww yissssss

I'm a world traveler... ladies

I wish I had more time to explore Zurich, but only the one day unfortunately.  Oh one of the really cool things about the city is that every fountain in the city is fresh, drinkable water.  So awesome to just walk around drinking from various fountains all over the place.
And now for the final story of this epic journey, my return home.  Ooooooooooooooh maaaaaaaaaaaaaan.  That was a doozy.  Go make some popcorn kids.  This is going to be wild.
So in order to go to Zurich from Munich, we had purchased bus tickets, and the form of ID is oddly enough the credit card that you bought the ticket with.  Kind of strange.  Especially since my bank thought that it was a fraudulent purchase and closed my credit card when I purchased said bus tickets.  Oddly enough it went through.  So now I had to bring a closed, expired credit card to Europe to use as my ID, because there's no way my passport would provide sufficient evidence of my identity.  Anyway, the bus to Zurich went without a hitch.  It was returning to Munich where things started to go awry.  My bus back was incredibly early in the morning, like 7:02 or something, in order to make it back to Munich with plenty of time to make my flight back to the US.  Well not really - it was a 10 hour flight to Vancouver, and then a flight down to SF.  Hey, at least it's only two planes this time, right?  So Chris and Emily are kind enough to not only wake up with me, but Chris walked me to the light rail station that would take me to the bus plaza, and then he even paid for my light rail fare with the Elf Coins that Switzerland uses as currency.  Such incredible hosts.  So I make it to the bus station with plenty of time.  But my 7:02 to Munich was nowhere to be found.  After 20 minutes I got nervous.  It was nearly 7 and the bus wasn't there yet.  FINALLY a bus that said "Munich" pulls in, but the timing was way off.  I asked someone in line if this was the 7:02 to Munich.  Several translators later people are pointing at my ticket and one person goes "this is a train ticket."  You have got to be fucking kidding me.  At 7:05 I found out that my 7:02 to another country is not a bus ticket but a train ticket.  Because, sure, why wouldn't this one be a train when we arrived via bus?  So I booked it to the train station, right next door, to the platform on the ticket... right as the train pulled away.  Mother.  Fucker.  Whelp.  Now I'm in a country that isn't the one I need to be in to catch my flight with no internet or phone service.  And that train station is like as big as Delaware.  I was walking for what seemed like days, reading signs in a language I barely speak, to find the "information" office.  Thankfully the woman there spoke English really well and was supremely helpful and got me a train ticket for the next train to Munich... in two hours.  Ok this was going to be tight.  The two hour delay meant that I now would be pulling into the center of the city and had to catch a city train out to the airport, get my ticket, go through customs, and reach my gate all in only 40 minutes.  Do you have any idea how stressful a four hour train ride is when you know you have the tightest deadline in the world when you get to your destination?  WHAT IF THERE'S A DELAY FOR EVEN A FRACTION OF A MINUTE???  So that was INSANE.  I got off the train, hopped onto the train to the airport (paying for a ticket?  Ain't nobody got time for that!), arrived at the airport and RAN as fast and loudly as I could to my gate.  I arrived 30 seconds before they shut the door after final call.  And only because there was a 15 minute delay to the flight.  ARE YOU JOKING???  And then a 10 hour flight to Canada, which is not high on my list of "fun things you should definitely do in your life."  Guess what: that 15 minute delay now meant that my layover in Vancouver was going to be a nightmare.  AND IT WAS.  What is going on???  I ran through more customs gates, the slowest process ever, and only barely made THAT flight.  WHAT AN INSANE DAY.  But I survived.  And in the end, isn't that really all that matters?  Thanks for the beer, Germany.

Moving to California Part 4 - Colorado to San Francisco

The last segment of a long, amazing road trip out Californy-ways.  It's hard to believe some of these things exist, let alone in this country.


Sunday 8/10/14 - Great Sand Dunes National Park
When we woke up this morning, everyone was in moods.  We were tired and some people had flights to catch... it didn't leave much room for fun.  So we just drove straight to the park-n-ride, where Soup spent a few days hanging out.  We then unpacked, re-packed, and said our goodbyes.  From here on out it would be me, Jess, and Katie.
After getting the car settled, our adventure for the day was to drive South to Great Sand Dunes National Park.  The drive was uneventful... a wind turbine here and there.  Driving along the Rockies.  But really the big thing was to see the Sand Dunes for the first time.  Oh man, so cool.  National parks are great because you enter them and your first thought is "how does this exist?"  It was so pretty.  Enormous dunes formed at the base of a mountain range.  Evidently they formed from a long standing predominant wind from the West pushing against a rare but powerful wind up over the northeastern mountains.  The dunes shift a maximum of 30 feet in either direction.  Not something one would expect in the middle of Colorado.

Jess is trying, I'll give her that

Excited about exploring, we quickly set up the tent and started walking up into the dunes.  Wearing shoes was a poor choice, because I poured about 2 lbs of sand out by the end of the day, but it was an extremely fun hike/walk.  A thunderstorm scared some people off, including Jess, and the whipping winds blasted us with abrasive sand, but we made it to the top of the High Dune.  It looked like another world.  So unbelievable.  Sand dunes completely surrounding me; it looked so unreal.

Surely I'm not posing

That weather was FUN

More light jackets than a lot of travelers in the Sahara

Is this even America?

Going back down was a lot of fun: a lot of tumbling down the dunes.  There was no part of my body uncovered by sand.  Sand was absolutely everywhere.  For days.  In my hair, ears... yikes.

All of that sand is just what I dumped out of my shoes

After that, we went on a short hike up to a lookout: seeing these impressive dunes reminded me of the dunes in Death Valley, but way bigger.  So impressive.

The Rockies are weird

Haha just kidding this is a famous painting I stole from a museum depicting something about Jesus

We made some pasta for dinner and then had a nice night walk back to the dunes to see them under moonlight.  Holy-freaking-crap.  Are you serious?  So amazing.  I can't believe that I, me, Chris Severino, future Emperor of the Universe, was lucky enough to experience something so unique.


Monday 8/11/14 - Mesa Verde National Park
After an efficient tent packing we started on our way West toward Mesa Verde National Park.  Staying in Colorado yet again - there's a lot going on here.  And this will be the last national park in Colorado that I have yet to visit!  We stopped for breakfast at what appeared to be a town, kind of.  The restaurant was called "Boogies."  The food existed.  They DID have a 6 lb cinnamon bun though, so that's good.
Anyway, after more driving, we finally got to Mesa Verde and signed up for a cliff dwelling tour at Balcony House.  We were just trying to understand how this park works, but apparently if we wanted to check this thing out the time is NOW.  So we had to book it up the mesa and through the park to make it in time.  The park is a lot of green, hilly mesa with several canyons.  In many of these canyons, Ancient Pueblo people built their communities.  Right into the sides of the canyons.  The sandstone ruins remain, and they look incredible.  So amazing to see how these people lived.
Our tour was very informative and involved climbing a few wooden ladders and crawling through some tiny doorways.  There were quite a few "people of size" on the tour that maybe shouldn't have been on the tour.  But whatever, it was still amazing to walk around INSIDE these sandstone dwellings.  Apparently the people would farm the tops of the mesas, so every day they would literally have to climb up and down the sides of the canyons, rock climbing sans harnesses, just to collect and maintain the food supply.

Mind you, this is IN THE SIDE of a vertical cliff

Katie's face has just a LITTLE bit more personality than that building

Just you WAIT until you see a photo of the entire community

After the tour we did a few short hikes, walked around checking out some of the other dwellings, went to some overlooks: it was a fun time.  We definitely saw a lot of cool stuff.  And I finished that gigantic cinnamon bun on top of a cliff.  I win.

WHO DOES THIS

Colorado, consider all of your national parks VISITED

Some thunderstorms started moving in as we drove around the mesa, providing some fairly epic sunset views.

what the fuck is going on here

You're looking in the wrong direction

But after all the sightseeing, we set up the tent and had SHOWERS!  What an unexpected treat!  And we made some more pasta and called it a night.  Good day though.


Tuesday 8/12/14 - Grand Canyon National Park
Today's adventure began around 7am, packing up the car and heading down toward the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  But first, we stopped at the Four Corners Monument.  This spot is literally the point at which Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet.  Kind of cool.  It was on Navajo land, so we paid some money awkwardly to get onto the park land.  But it was worth it to stand in four states at once.  I guess.  Whatever, it was fun.

Quad-State Starfish

Then we got a bullshit breakfast at Denny's and THEN to the Grand Canyon.  Quick stop off at our campsite, which is just outside the park (the one campground in the park was full, THANKS), and then on into the park itself.  On the way in we passed a herd of Buffalo: these guys are everywhere.

So freaking lazy

And then we headed right to the lodge and had a drink before anything else.  Because you know, we're in a national park, so that's the thing you do.  This gave us enough time for Jess to see the actual canyon for the first time, and it was ridiculous.  So unbelievably beautiful.  The colors and expanse were just as I remember and more - so freaking insane.  Not as many tourists on the North Rim side, which is nice, but they can still be annoying over here.  So we set off to drive over to some other viewpoints.  We didn't want to go on a hike because it was so late in the day, so seeing different areas would be nice.

It's a greenscreen

Most of those colors aren't even in the color spectrum

We drove up to Point Imperial, the highest point in the park at about 9000ish feet, and to Cape Royal, which has some incredible views.

Severi-YES

It was just ok

We caught what might be my second favorite sunset of all time there.  Holy crap so gorgeous: absolutely indescribable with the colors of the sky and the canyon all going BANANAS.

What is happening here

THAT. FREAKING. SUNSET.

We were hanging around with a group of photographers there, who seemed to be good fun, all heckling a shittier group of photographers who would yell at us to get out of their way.  Fuck off.  It's the Grand Canyon.  Nature is free.  Stop living behind your cameras.
It was definitely dark when we drove back to the campground at 8pm.  And it took an hour from Point Royal.  So we made some quick boil-bag meals (I had a pretty tasty beef stew made out of powders) and played our traditional game of Head's Up before nappy time.  But the important thing is that on the drive back there were some nighttime buffalo grazing right next to the road.  Kind of scary because they were so close, but it was great fun.


Wednesday 8/13/14 - Grand Canyon National Park
It's our second day at the Grand Canyon and OH GOOD the entire thing is fogged in.  We're on the inside of a ping pong ball.  We were going to get up for sunrise, but nope: rain.  Ok, so we slept a bit more and drove to the lodge for some breakfast.  We were seated right next to the window for a cool cloudy view of the canyon, but within moments, moments, EVERYTHING was fog.  Nothing could be seen past 20 feet.  Super annoying.
So we spent SEVEN HOURS writing postcards, catching up on my journal, reading, playing cards, and snacking.  Oh and several adult beverages.  When at the Grand Canyon... do as the Grand Canyons do?  So yeah, not the best Grand Canyon day.
But hey, when the clouds did finally start to clear it was amazing.  We went on a short walk and then drove up to Point Imperial again to see the shadows and colors of the canyon walls, which now included cloud remnants and rainbows too.  Not a bad way to end our stay at the Grand Canyon.

Maaaaaybe the clouds made it better... at least just a little bit

We went back to the campsite BEFORE dark this time and had one last round of pasta and Head's Up.  And the clouds cleared, revealing an AWESOME starry sky.  One of the best I've seen since that backcountry camping night in Yosemite.  Thanks for a great sky!


Thursday 8/14/14 - Las Vegas
Today we packed up the tent one last time: no more camping on this trip (SADFACE).  Tonight is Vegas night.  We started the drive blind though, no directions whatsoever.  We had to work on memory for about an hour until we finally got signal to look up directions on our phones.  We filled up on gas at a place with about a thousand dead moths.  HUGE moths, all over the place.  What the fuck?  So weird.
Our drive took us into Utah for a bit, then back down to Arizona for 20 minutes, and then Nevada.  This is state number: who the  fuck knows?  We got In'N'Out burger just outside Las Vegas borders.  No idea what time it was in Nevada, but apparently we arrived 20 minutes before it opened.  And they still served us!  I was order #3: so good.  I love this place.
After our delicious meal we pulled into Vegas, seeing all the casinos on the strip brought back fond memories of trips past and... PTSD from when I tried driving the Strip in Joe's manual car.  Haha.  We APPARENTLY have a suite at the Venetian.  So ridiculous.  So big.  So baller.  Also it is 97 degrees holy freaking  crap.  I am outside at the pool right now.  Super hot, but so great swimming and drinking Pina Coladas.  Tonight we are probably going to hit up the casinos on the Strip.  LIKE BALLERS.

My life right now is very different than it was 24 hours previous to this

Just some road beers on a rampy escalator

Well, we did it.  We enjoyed Las Vegas a little too much.  After the pool, we walked down the Strip for some drink fixins, road beers, and burritos.  These got us back to the hotel, where we took showers (still amazed at how good showers can be) and unwound a bit while watching Shark Week.
We headed downstairs after that, where I promptly lost money playing roulette.  So then we sat down at a video blackjack game and stayed there for about 3 hours.  I put a $20 in and played that thing all night, eventually losing $10?  After 3 hours of heckling the video dealer avatars and getting about 7 rounds of free drinks.  I knew when I ordered a martini that things were going in a bad direction.  Then the waitress started offering us shots and I started ordering 2 drinks at a time... uh oh.
So yeah then more debauchery was in our future as we then started walking down the strip.

Beer #??

Memory is fading from consciousness

Always a fun time, even when you're not aware of it

We bounced around to a few outdoor bars and tried to see the Bellagio water show... but it turned out to be 2am and we definitely, definitely missed it.  Everything after that was hazy, but a cold Subway hoagie the next morning indicated that I tried and failed to have a late night snack.


Friday 8/15/14 - San Francisco
I am super pumped that my hangover isn't as bad as it could have been.  We got up... later than I wanted to, but whatever.  It's fine.  Today was just a day to spend 9 hours in the car driving to San Francisco.  It was long and slightly annoying, but we had some podcasts to listen to.  The drive included a few Joshua Trees and a stop off at a fruit stand for some cheap strawberries.  They were seriously delicious, like you don't even know.
We pulled into my temporary extended stay hotel around 6:30pm and very easily moved into the place.  It looks awesome: deck, nice bed, amenities, a RUG.  And it's really convenient for work.  I think the next two weeks here will be nice.
After we got settled a bit, Jimmy and Tassi came over to welcome me to the bay area.  They drove us up into the city to see Gary, who is in town for work.  It was great to hang out together: we walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area and went to the strangest bar ever.  It was an Irish pub/Curry house.  What?  It looked like someone took an Irish bar, complete with pool tables and air hockey, and wrapped it around an Indian restaurant.  Great food and beer though.  We were so tired, so we didn't stay out too late: just drove back home around midnight.

My home for 2 weeks until I find an expensive home

Not touristy enough

Sunday 8/17/14 - San Francisco
So... I start my first day of work tomorrow.  Kind of excited and nervous all at once, especially since I haven't gone to work in like a month and a half.  But the past few days of being in SF have been amazing.  We toured the city with Blake, Gary, Jimmy, and Tassi.  Eating sourdough breadbowls at Fisherman's Wharf, going to a bar in North Beach, walking around in Chinatown.

Arrow, you're not going to hit anyone sticking in the ground like that

I think I've seen that expression before... in the Shining.

Don't worry about this one

At night we met up with Rebecca and Peter and had an incredible evening.  Indian food followed by Bootie Mashup dance party!  So much fun HOLY CRAP.  It was the 11th anniversary of Bootie Mashups, which I've been a fan of for a few years now, so there was a weird burlesque show going on and live bands and everything.  I didn't even know what was going on: it was nuts.

Rebecca excited is probably my favorite thing ever

Today we've been exploring the Mountain View area a bit and relaxing.  A pool/laundry day mixed in with just a bunch of stuff I need to take care of for work.  Not a bad way to spend the day.  Here's to a good first day tomorrow...