It's entries like today's blog that I feel justifies me being a little (a lot) behind in writing them, because for some of today I relied on getting it pieced together after the fact. Yes, I was at Oktoberfest! But it wasn't like this all day; I'm not that much of an alcoholic! This morning started pretty early, as I had a fair bit to do before meeting up with Nikita and Alissa. Last night Nikita and I both managed to have wifi at the same time so we arranged to meet up at about 11am and head off to Oktoberfest then. Before that, I needed a costume! I didn't realise how big a thing dressing up at Oktoberfest was, which is surprising given I like to dress up at every opportunity. So last night I spent a bit of time looking at costumes and places that sold them online, and found a shop selling the whole kit about a 25 minute walk away, and this morning that was my mission! I got up early and by about 8:45am I'd hit the road power walking to the store (I couldn't get up too early, the store had to be open!). Once there they fully kitted me out in the leather shorts (lederhosen), a shirt, long socks, shoes and a scarf. I looked the part! 20 minutes after arriving I was legging it back to the hotel to get ready. Whoo! It's fair to say I struggled initially to get into the bloody thing on my own. The leather was tight, and the shoulder straps kept tangling. Lucky I was on my own, because I must've looked so stupid figuring out how to put those shorts on. By the time I did get it on though, I reckon I thoroughly deserved a beer for the effort! Honestly I don't care if I deserved it or not though, I was at Oktoberfest - the whole purpose of the place is to drink beer, and drink beer I was going to do! Once I finally squeezed into my costume (except the scarf, I have no idea still how I'm supposed to wear that), I FaceTimed some friends to make them jealous, took some selfies for my vanity, and, looking ridiculously awesome decked out in German (maybe just like my German surname, I looked angelic), and headed out for the 20 minute walk to meet Nikita and Alissa at their hostel. At around 11am I arrived at the hostel, where Alissa met me at reception and took me up to where the rest of their crew were finishing getting ready. Actually, they pretty much were all ready, but we did need to get a heap of photos because we all looked awesome! There was Nikita and Alissa, my friends from work, and Glen and Sarah, who looked awfully familiar. Turns out I used to work with Sarah at K-Mart (I sneakily asked Nikita that when I had the chance) After getting the last of our thousand selfies and photos and poses and pictures (we did look pretty awesome) we headed off! First stop, Glen and I needed hats to 'cap' off (haha) our costume perfectly! With that done, we were off toward the Oktoberfest grounds, a fairytale land full of beer and pretzels and pork knuckles and sausages. It was full of so much more than that! There were rides everywhere, merchandise stands, gingerbread love heart stalls, dodgem cars, shooter games, crepe stands, so much of everything, and of course, the absolutely massive beer halls! It was so amazing to see such a massive festival, pretty much exclusively to worship beer, being such a family friendly place. In fact it's so much set up as this that they even have a school kids day, where all the local school kids get to go to the festival! They're surely setting up some good little drinkers for the future! One place they weren't allowed though was in the beer tents. But we were, and we did! Once in the grounds we had only one place on our minds - Hofbrauhaus beer hall! We entered the doors, and there before us this absolutely massive hall opened up in front of us, jam packed full of dressed up German lookalike beer guzzlers! The energy in the place was intense! We somehow managed to find space on a table in the centre area of the hall, which was reserved from 3pm, but still gave us a good few hours at this spot! Once there, almost immediately we had a waitress appear, and we ordered our first steins! It was an incredible sight watching this German woman bringing back seven steins for the table in a matter of minutes, what a beer goddess! She should be made a saint. Next came the massive pretzel, freshly served by blokes coming around to the table. With beer and pretzel, we were set. I drank steins for the next few hours like it was nobody's business, like they were going out of fashion, like they were the last steins on earth. They clearly weren't any of these, because they kept coming - brilliant! The atmosphere was amazing! Every few moments there would be a massive cheer come from somewhere in the hall, where somebody would be standing up on a bench attempting to skull their stein. If they did it, they became absolute legends, with a huge roar from the thousands in the crowd. But the minute they started to struggle, the overwhelming boos would start, and missiles of pretzels, chicken wings, paper - anything that could be thrown really - would be heading their way from all directions. Same went for people who tried to fool the crowd by standing up to skull the last quarter of their stein! I think even Nikita was subjected to it when she ordered a stein of lemonade after only getting halfway through her shandy in a couple of hours. They were unforgiving, but fair enough - we were at Oktoberfest! One bloke who did get some support was the Pom next to me who stood up, revved up the crowd, poured his beer into his hat, then skulled it from the hat, gaining a massive eruption of cheers when he put it back on his head. There were actually a lot of Poms here too, identifiable every time they started the chant (da da da, da da da) from the song Chelsea Dagger, which they did every five minutes. We get that you're here Poms. The whole place was just insanely fun! There was the band, which played German music all arvo, including a drinking song that ended with a massive 'Prost' with everybody and their steins seemingly every five minutes too. There was a man who took his top of and balanced his stein on his beer belly, which was talented and disgusting at the same time. There was an old couple that came later who had their iPad, and naturally when they turned a blind eye I geralded the **** out of it. And there were people selling heaps of different things, which as we moved into the arvo became more and more tempting. It got so tempting in fact that when the lady came around selling little pegs, which she burnt custom messages into, I laid her down a challenge! I wanted to see if she could fit 'Lick my windmill' into the tiny space of the peg. Challenge accepted! As she started getting prepared, naturally her and everybody else around the area wanted to know why on earth I wanted 'Lick my windmill' on a peg. I say why not? I explained to them the story about the windmill and the fact my brother always said it, and that I know what's it's like now that I have one too. And of course they wanted to see the windmill, so in a packed beer house, I stood, really difficultly wriggled down my ridiculously tight shorts (so classy), and showed so proudly the windmill on my left **** cheek! In that moment, amongst the cheers all around (slight exaggeration), I knew that my windmill was the greatest decision of my life! The lady was successful too in putting my message on the peg, and I wore it proudly for the rest of the day. All too quickly 3pm approached, and when I got back to the table after a toilet break, we were being moved on out of there, as it was now reserved for others. It's from here on in that the day got hazy, so I think I'll separate the story into things I remember and things that I needed reminding of from here. In no particular order, I remember getting into the blue sky outside. I remember being incredibly happy. I remember sitting at the back of a beer hall, then more in the centre. I remember there being a real sleaze d*** being creepy to the girls so we kept him at bay. I remember seeing the window outside and seeing it was still light, and me wondering how on earth it still could be, it had to be night by now, I was so ****** so it had to be getting late - I was willing it to get late! I remember some dancing on the benches. I remember trying some sweet dessert thing of Nikita's. I remember us getting up and going at some time when it was finally dark. I remember kicking Glen's **** at a shooter game, and him being super devastated at that. I remember walking them all home (I'm good at directions), and then getting myself home. I remember being so disappointed when I got home that I didn't have pork knuckle today. I remember calling people back home and voicing that disappointment. I remember that I had an absolutely awesome day! But...(thanks Nikita for your input the next day so I can fill this in) I don't remember us all losing Glen. I don't remember not helping to find him because I wanted to sit down, and therefore Nikita also not helping look so she could keep an eye on me. I don't remember him being found, but I guess he was - he was with us at the end of the day! I don't remember breaking my peg a heap of times and Nikita having to fix it each time. I don't reminder getting my windmill out again another couple of times because of the peg being seen, and questions being asked what it meant. I don't remember patting some people's heads. I don't remember a lot of the dancing I did on the benches. I don't remember that I actually did have a pork knuckle (yay I had one!). Hell, this blog's so far behind I probably don't remember what I don't remember anymore. Confusing. But knowing that I didn't know that, I do remember even more that it just must've been an awesome day! I think the Lonely Planet sums it up well when it says "expect mobs, expect to meet new and drunken friends, expect decorum to vanish as night sets in and you'll have a blast". And at the end of it, I remember getting into bed, totally exhausted, but so happy for the first day I had at Oktoberfest. Prost!