Oktoberfest

Thursday/Friday

It was a long two days of traveling to get to Oktoberfest. I packed up my backpack and was ready to leave by 10 am. I attended my last class then hurried back home for a last attempt to catch the mail with hopes of receiving my digital camera. Sadly it did not arrive. Made my way to the train station where I purchased two disposable cameras for the trip and hoped on our train. The train ride was a long one where we had to hop on four different trains just to get down to Munich. The first couple of train rides we were all hyper and were getting stir crazy so we found little ways to entertain us. Balancing on one leg has proven to be quite challenging on a train especially with all the s curves. When we arrived in Hamburg, Germany we had a lay over of 3 hours. There we relaxed and viewed the sights of Germany. We saw the town center or what we believe to be the town center and then sat along the canal. I was surprised to see a World War 1 memorial in Hamburg. When we arrived there, a festival was taking place. The theme was China in Hamburg 2006. A lot of little shops and Chinese food. It was torture looking at all the delicious food especially because we could afford to buy any. A very interesting fact is that Germany is the Gothic capital of the world. There were many youths who were gothic themed.

After our layover we jumped on our train to take us to Munich. Alie, Ruth, Trevor (Canadian) booked sleepers which made the ride so much easier. I actually had a great night rest. Oh I should mention who came to Oktoberfest. A group of 14, 7 guys and 7 gals. From US – Myself, Alie, Ruth, Sam, Tony, Jackson and Beca. From Canada – Jen, and Trevor. From Australia – Liam, Andrew, Kate, Jenna, and Ursula. The rest of the bunch had regular seats and slept alright. That train ride was the longest. While on the train I met some Danish guys whose birthday just occurred and as a present they received Lederhosen. They were ready for Oktoberfest. They were quite courageous since they hadn’t booked a place to sleep yet.  The beds we had were sort of comfortable but it didn’t really matter since we were so tired from the transferring of trains.

7 am rolls around and the conductor comes by and wakes all up who were going to Munich. Since Munich was the last stop, he was quite loud. We meet up with everyone in the station and plan our next step. We can’t check into our hotel till 3pm but we can drop our bags off at the hotel. I decided that since we only technically had 2 rooms for all of us we should drop off half our bags now and the rest later. I took a group of 5 with me and the rest went to explore and get in line for tables at Oktoberfest. We were told by Germans and others who have been at Oktoberfest to get there early to get a table. The tents open at 10 so you want to be in line by 9.

The walk to the hotel turned out to be longer than I thought. We arrived and dropped the bags off, freshened up and went back to meet the rest of the group at Oktoberfest. On the way we stopped at Starbucks, Alie is in love with the stuff and really needed to get her fix. While we were there we met an employee who was actually a DUCK from U of O. It is so weird to find Oregonians out here in Munich, but at the same time comforting. So we exchanged some college banter on who’s going to win this year then headed off to the tents.

Oktoberfest was nothing like I imagined. I thought it was going to be some tents in a field where they served beer. It turned out that Oktoberfest is latterly a CARNIVAL. They have rides, food stands, prizes, gift shops, and beer halls that are so big that I’m pretty sure they could hold 2500 people easy. We arrived at about 1045 to find the place pretty empty and our buddies at a table in the HB tent. So we sit down and order a stein and start drinking. There were an incredible amount of Italians there, so many that it is said to be an Italian weekend. Since they won the world cup this year, they were drinking and chanting soccer chants. Quite a sight. I knew I would see drunken people that day but never THAT many.  So by 3pm rolls around I am working on my 3rd stein and not feeling too bad. I stood up and realized that the White Beer that they serve is pretty potent. But I had to stop in order to check in at the hotel. I grabbed 5 other guys and headed to the hotel. On the way we picked up the backpacks and made our way to the hotel. Some of the people on the trip really can’t pack properly. The packs I carried, I could have sworn they packed bricks and we were only there for 3 days!  Once in the hotel, we were beat. We called the rest of the group and told them the room numbers and slowly over the rest of the hours they started showing up. Tired we took some naps and went in a swim in a very nice pool. Enjoyed the night and relaxed because we knew the next day would be a big one of drinking.