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.
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| The crew and the random German guy that we didn't know at the end of our table |
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| Baby's first Oktoberfest beer (you can tell because I'm not a mess) |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| wtf, that's the most precise woodstacking I've ever seen |
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| 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.
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| 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. |
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| Someone said "I like that you're both leaning the same way." My response was "the camera was tilted." |
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| Gravity is not the same in Germany |
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| meh |
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| Dibs 6th window on the west side of the northwest turret! |
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| One of several courtyards I think |
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| Are you freaking kidding me? |
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| 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.
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| Dinobombing in Munich |
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| What are we even looking at |
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| Panorama from the top of the church tower |
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| 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.
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| Checking off one of my "Under 30" list items |
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| This is quite literally how they bring the beer into the Oktoberfest grounds |
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| These "tents" are just ridiculous |
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| IT JUST KEEPS GOING |
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| We ended up staying at Augusteiner today |
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| 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.
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| Obligatory two liters of beer photo |
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| And Dodgeball Steve randomly finds us! |
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| Things got out of hand early |
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| Um... so LATER when I start remembering things again... |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| A liter is a lot but it certainly goes quick |
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| New friends made the night pretty damn fun |
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| 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.
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| SO EUROPEAN |
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| Yay! Meeting friends in other countries is great! |
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| I'm not even sure I know what this is |
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| Awwwww yissssss |
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| 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.
