I love my new tattoo! For the last five or so years since Daniel got his, I've listened to him humorously tell anybody with an ear to "lick my (his) windmill". And now so can I! It's incredibly powerful! For the last two days, Dad's copped the brunt of it from me asking him, and I think he's secretly glad that I'm out of there from today. Either that or he's finally happy to have some alone time with Mum. Eww. After yet another cup of tea served in bed (thanks Mum), I dragged myself out of bed and got myself ready, finalising my packing in the process. I was heading off to Munich today, catching the 10:34am train out. Mum and Dad jumped on the tram with me and accompanied me down to the station, which I think was nice of them on face value, but could really have been to make sure I left. And they really did want to make sure, because after a quick coffee with them I boarded the train about 10 minutes before it was due to leave, and they stood at my window making sure I stayed on there till the train rolled off! It's ok parents, I'm gone! Your loss, I know you'll miss me. To get to Munich, firstly this train was going via Frankfurt. I'd been on this train before, so felt like a pro! Once we'd gotten going, I went and got some food, settled in with some tunes, and decided I better do some blogging! The first part of the trip seemed to go pretty quickly, and in no time at all (figuratively, not literally - time did in fact keep going and about three hours elapsed, as it needs to to be able to travel that distance, I wasn't in a teleporter!) I'd arrived at the Frankfurt Airport station, which given its small size, was the easiest place for me to change to the train that would take me to Munich. I was a little concerned about this given I only had about a 10 minute changeover, and there's not really any English information available on the platforms. But it mattered little, because as soon as the train I stepped off pulled away, the screen on the platform updated saying Muenchen, which I knew was Munich (yeah, my German was getting good!). The only remaining problem was finding my carriage, which I failed dismally! The European trains are like hundreds of metres long, and this one was only stopping for a minute or two, so I knew it'd be difficult getting to my carriage in that time. I had no idea where on the platform I should stand, so I took pot luck in the hope that my carriage was close when the train stopped. No such luck. My carriage was right at the other end of the train, and there was no way I was going to get up to it in time before the train pulled away, so I just jumped on to the nearest first class section I could and found a seat. Luckily the seats display if they're going to be reserved, so I knew it wasn't and I wasn't going to have to move for the rest of the trip. The train wasn't really that packed at all actually, which surprised me given it was off to Munich and the biggest festival in the world, but it was good because it meant I could stretch out and settle in for the ride - I got a bit of blogging, relaxing and sleeping in! It was sort've lucky that I didn't get up too much during the trip, because the one time I did, I did a Katrina! For those who don't know, which is pretty much everyone (I'm really just calling it that on the off chance she's reading this), Katrina is a friend at work who earlier in the year went into the public toilets at work and walked in on a man ******** who hadn't locked the door. I gave her, dare I say, so much **** for that at the time! But that came back to bite me on the train, when I went to go to the toilet, saw the green light, tore open the door, and there, mere inches in front of me (train toilets are tiny), was a bloke having a ****. Who does that?! Not just who doesn't lock the train toilet door, but who ***** in the tiny train toilet?! Lock the door man, please! Needless to say I didn't go to that toilet! I was getting concerned as the train neared Munich, because the rain that had been falling most of the afternoon wasn't letting up; if anything it just seemed to be getting harder. We've actually been really lucky so far with the weather. Apart from our first week in Amsterdam I hadn't seen any rain until now - we got through all of Ireland and England without any of it. In fact, I even got burnt in Ireland it was so nice. It never ceases to amaze me the situations and places where I burn! But even being that lucky with the weather, I still didn't want to see rain now - I had about a 20 minute walk (too short for a taxi) to my accommodation when I got into Munich, and I certainly didn't want all my stuff to be wet! Luckily when the train reached Munich the rain had stopped, so I didn't have to deal with that. But I did have to deal with other things - massive drunk crowds! Oktoberfest was all around me as soon as I stepped off the train and onto the platform, and the station wasn't even near the party! There were stalls selling costumes, stores selling German sausages, and lots and lots of drunk people! Just leaving the station, I got bumped into by two drunks stumbling, and in the 20 minute walk, I saw one person stumble out in front of a taxi and very nearly get cleaned up, multitudes of drunk stumbling crowds, broken beer stubbies, puddles of spew, and three people passed out in various positions! It was only 6:30pm. I got the feeling these next few days were going to be fun and very messy! I was excited! I managed to successfully navigate through the crowds and check into my hotel, and settled in to what was going to be my home for the next four nights. When I got into my room, I found a really nice welcome package with a big bottle of Oktoberfest beer, gingerbread, a little bottle of spirit and a shot glass! This place was awesome already. I had a couple of friends from work I was meeting here, so the first thing I did once I'd gotten into the wifi (yay) was touch base with them to get a gauge of what the plans were for tomorrow. The next thing I needed was food (wifi always trumps food). I was a little concerned about this given I didn't speak German (I get a bit self-conscious about language barriers!), but on my way to the hotel I had walked past a pizza place, and I thought surely I could manage to order that! I wandered down, and despite the man not speaking English, I successfully ordered a Margherita pizza (I wanted something more but couldn't understand anything else on the menu, so it would do!). Hooray! I saw more evidence of Oktoberfest at the pizza shop too, with a man passed out in the waiting chair. When he was woken up because his pizza was ready, he tried to pay for it, but the man had to explain to him (a few times) he'd already paid when he ordered it. What an awesomely messed up city this was! I took my pizza back to the hotel, chucked the tv on, and settled in for a relaxing night. Even though I had like 30 channels, Germany likes to dub their tv shows, so I flicked through some decent shows I knew but couldn't understand, and settled on the only one in English - CNN World News. Oh well, I didn't care! I was in Munich, for Oktoberfest. Nothing could be bad!