What a weekend!
On Thursday night some of my friends and I took an 8 hour bus to Munich, Germany for none other than the Oktoberfest! We arrived early Friday morning, and naturally started drinking as soon as we got off the bus (the campsite we were staying at offered free beer and you cannot say no to free beer!)
The first day was spent exploring Munich before we braved the hustle and bustle and drunken crazy-ness of Oktoberfest as we weren't altogether sure we'd make it out alive :P We went for what was supposed to be a biking tour of the city, but the tour was over-booked so there were not enough bikes for the bike tour. It seemed silly, almost even annoying, but my roommate and I managed to score a tandem bicycle so we could still participate. Have you ever ridden a tandem bike? No? Well neither have I! That one and a half minutes of tandem biking was the hardest, most terrifying one and a half minutes of my life. After failing miserably at the challenge of tandem biking my roommate and I lost our group and ended up standing alone on an unfamiliar street in Munich tandem bike in hands. Needless to say we were off to a rocky start. But we were in Munich and we were still together so it wasn't all that bad. We knew enough of our surroundings to walk back to the head office of the bike tour and tell them our problem. They said sorry, they couldn't help us but if we wanted we could still meet the rest of our friends for lunch, we would just have to walk there. We ended up having a private tour from a friendly British man dressed in traditional lederhosen who knew little to nothing about Munich but did his utmost to tell us everything he could. It could have been three hours of nothing but lies but he was convincing and very nice to go out of his way to help us out. We met our friends for lunch, had our first beers in Munich that we actually had to pay for, and then walked back. On the way I stopped to buy my dirndl, a necessity for Oktoberfest. I managed to find the cheapest one in the country as I was told, and wore it proudly. Afterwards we met up with a group from our campsite, not the friends we had come with but they would do, and walked towards Oktoberfest. The tour guide had no idea where he was going but luckily I could read a map so together we lead 20 or 30 students eager for beer towards the biggest beer festival in the world.
And so it all began.
As soon as we got there my roommate and I got separated yet again, but by now we were used to wandering around by ourselves. We went on some rides and bought some food, not yet brave enough to splash out the 10 euro it costs for a beer. It was a good first evening at Oktoberfest, but we called it a night relatively early and headed back to the campsite for more free beer and drunken disorderliness. That first night was too crazy to even mention here (no, I did not get drunk- I don't like being drunk and to be honest I don't even really like beer so I wasn't in too much danger there) but believe me when I say it was crazy.
The next morning we got up bright and early to beat the crowds (unsuccessfully). Some friends and I tackled our way into the Spatenbrau tent, planning to spend an hour or two, and emerged five hours later. We ate, we drank, we danced on benches, we made friends with everyone who could understand at least two words of English as none of us spoke German, and we drank some more. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the surprisingly warm and sunny streets of Oktoberfest. We went on some rides, ate some more, drank some more and just generally enjoyed each other's company. Again, we called it quits relatively early, opting to take one of our excessively drunk friends back to the camp rather than trying to keep her conscious and coherent amongst the throng on thousands, if not millions of similarly drunk tourists and Germans alike. Back at the campsite we, as I'm sure you can guess, drank some more. There was a free meal, or rather inclusive meal as we did shed a pretty penny for the trip in it's entirety, and music and more free beer and more new friends to be made. That night was probably the most fun and the most ridiculously drunken nights I have experienced- again I was not drunk but everyone else around me was.
The last day was spent tiredly wandering through the festival once more, finding our way into a tent and buying souvenirs as gifts. We took it easy back at the campsite until we had to get back on the bus and sit through another 8 hours of traveling.
General summary of the weekend?
One small Dirndl: 38 euro
One liter of beer: 10 euro
most amazing hotdog I've ever had: 8 euro
present for my sister: 4 euro
Oktoberfest as a whole…. Absolutely priceless!!
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