Friday morning I woke up early and went for a run down to the free beach gym. I also ran back. Afterwards I cooked me up a breakfast of champions (cereal, eggs, bacon, crepes + jam, banana) and took a taxi to the airport (not simultaneously). I arrived in Munich around 3:30 PM, meeting my friend Alex from BC in the central airport mall area. We went to go get some early dinner in downtown Munich while we awaited the arrivals of our other five friends. Dinner was lovely.
The backdrop to lunch in one of the central plazas. We had our first big mug of German bier here!
But more importantly we had no working phones. We only had a general idea about where the hotel/hostel was located. We took the subway to the nearest stop and walked the wrong way for a few blocks. Then Alex performed field surgery on his cell phone, switching his French SIM card for his Brazilian one (which had a semi-functioning data plan), thus enabling us to locate ourselves and walk towards the hotel. However, we stopped in the nearby Chinese restaurant because we had no idea if Lorena or Susan or Pedro [Peter] (under whose names the room was booked) had arrived. So we had a beer and waited. One by one, they arrived at the Chinese restaurant. First, Airen walks in the door by complete coincidence. He also was without a phone, except he traveled by train and took the subway all by himself. Pretty funny how that worked out. Next, Danish Phil walked through the door about half an our later (he may have seen the SOS Facebook message Alex and I sent to the group). Eventually Susan and Lorena saw our message from the hotel WiFi and hurried over to collect us. We settled into the room (two double beds + large-ish futon couch-bed... for seven people. It was cozy!). That night we went to sleep early to get ready for Oktoberfest.
Saturday morning Susan woke up early and cooked eggs and bacon and bought German pastries. Awesome. I helped wash dishes. Everyone changed and/or showered and then we left hostel around 8:45 AM to go to the festival. We arrived around 10:00 AM. It was raining when we got there. This made everyone rush to get into beer tents for cover and beer. We waited in line for an hour at a big tent, gave up, and went to find a smaller one. Forty-five grumpy, wet, hungry minutes later, we got into a small tent named something that starts with 'Z' and contains many consonants. Classic German. What a great few hours! We stay there from about 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM, having a few big glasses of beer, making new friends at tables, and enjoying our shelter from the storm (yes, that's a Bob Dylan reference). The reason we got a table in this particular tent, however, was because they rotate tables of people every few hours, letting new customers in and making old customers leave (and making lots of €€€ in the process). So we had to leave, and we went to buy crispy half-chickens.
Over-sized German figures can be found all over this place. Over-sized German people, as well. It must be all the carbohydrates.
Their salty, golden skin is to die for. The chickens, not the Germans. Come on, people! After refueling we headed out to other smaller places (we figured the we would save the big beer tents for Sunday, the official last day of Oktoberfest). We only managed to get into one more smaller place. And by 'we' I mean only four of our group of seven. This group was Alex, Lorena, Airen, and yours truly. I've known Alex and Lorena since the first week of college, and Airen lived with us all on Newton campus as well, so it was a really good group. We stayed long enough to get hungry again and thus, we ordered sausages.
Guten tag. I actually ordered sausages and sauerkraut. With the irresistible Oktoberfest beverage. I actually found it all very resistible. I don't need to eat a meal anywhere similar to this for a long, long time.
By the time we left, it was almost 5:30 PM, and we were done with the beer and rain and commotion. We somehow reunited with our other half of the group and made our way back to the hostel together, after a brief adventure to the amusement park areas. It had stopped raining.
View from the top of a ride. I decided to risk my iPhone's life to take this picture, so you're welcome.
Sunday morning I took a refreshing shower around 6:45 AM, and we later all left the hostel around 7:45 AM. It was not raining when we arrived, nor did it rain once during the whole day. Thus, only a reasonable amount of people entered the beer tents, many instead opting to enjoy the roller coasters and chocolate-covered fruit stands. In case my hyphenated adjective was unclear, these are stands that sell chocolate-covered fruit and are not (alas) stands covered in chocolate themselves. We made our way to these activities, among others, in the afternoon. Back to the bier haus! We all get a nice table in the middle of the tent and enjoyed being in the middle of all the festivities we had planned to attend.
The inside. The live German music started around 11:00 AM. The tradition in these bier tents is for people (not just guys, mind you) to stand up on their table and chug a liter of beer, much to the joyous cheers of the ever-more inebriated crowd. As the day progresses, people get creative. They sit on their friends' shoulders, they chug two beers instead of one, they sing the song, "Hey Baby".
The group of seven. Right to left: Alex, Pedro, Airen, Phil, Susan, Lorena, me.
I, for one, had a delicious salami and cheesy-bread sandwich with a sugar-coated pastry for breakfast. One day of beer was enough for me (I don't really like the taste, but when in Oktoberfest...) so I had maybe a liter and a half all day, and half of that at my 11:00 AM "breakfast" in this tent (very little beer in total, by Oktoberfest standards). We left our table around 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM and purchased more crispy, baked half-chickens (they were not more crispy, rather we bought additional chicken with respect to Saturday's purchases). Alex bought chocolate-covered strawberries and proceeded to immediately buy chocolate-covered bananas upon his consumption of the former. We went on a few rides together, like the Olympic-themed roller coaster with five 360-degree loops of the traditional Olympic colors.
Oktoberfested out. Again, by around 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM everyone was noticeably exhausted and needed their siesta. We returned once again for a nap.
The big park that runs along the river Isar. There's a small Oracle-of-Delphi-type building on the far right, which looked kinda cool. There were five or six football fields around the park, which always warms my heart to see. America needs to step it up.
Now this was probably the most interesting part. These people (in cold weather) go 'surfing' on the river turbulence. It is really awesome to watch. But also really... I don't know... European.
Can't forget your smoke break in between 'waves'. I seriously need to stop second-hand smoking. It's a bad and filthy habit.
After more than two hours of walking and subway hopping, we returned to the hostel to find the rest of our group asleep, but in their words, "Oh! We were just getting up!" Believe them if you will; all I have to say is that the lights were all off until we returned and turned them on. After various showers and changing of garments, I once again googled a restaurant, this time an Italian one, and we were off to dinner! It ended up being a lovely evening and dinner, although Airen had to leave early to catch his night train to Paris. We were down to 6. I was pretty tired when I got back to the hostel. I think everyone else was too, despite their nap, because they drank a little more than I did. We went to sleep relatively early.
Monday I woke up Alex at 6:20 AM so he could catch the subway to the train to his plane to Paris. We were now down to 5. After we checked out of the hostel and showered (~11:00 AM) we headed out to the subway where Pedro (read: Peter) left on the train to the airport. Down to 4. The rest of us made it a point to find a cafe and get coffee.
I like the taste of coffee quite a lot now. This is surely an important stage in one's physical development. I just had a few pastries and coffee for lunch because I was still full from my shrimp spaghetti the previous night.
After brunch, the four of us headed to the Olympic Park and BMW Museum. Unfortunately the museum is only closed on Mondays. And it was Monday. But the showroom was open, so I got to sit in an M6 and see the ugly new Mini Coopers. We walked around the Olympic Park and stopped to get some food around 4:00 PM. I had a salad, some French fries, an apple (system still in shock from non-chocolate-covered fruit/vegetable intake) and my last German bier before heading to the airport for the last goodbyes. Phil (from Denmark) left at 8:10 PM to a city starting with the letter "B" near Copenhagen and Susan, Lorena, and I soon left, all on the same flight, to Barcelona at 8:30 PM. Down to 3! The two girls are studying in Madrid and flew through Barcelona on their way back home.
Olympiapark Munchen
The diving board is so. So. So. So. So high.
Da beamer building
Can't drive stick shift (sigh)
I recently said goodbye to those two at the airport, they have an all-night layover! How terrible. I hope they turn down the brightness of the main lights in the "B" concourse... or else they might not get much sleep. And now the group is down to, and back to, 1.
Having planned this trip over two months ago, it was really great to actually do it and see some familiar faces for a change. Also, Munich is an amazing city, they do a wonderful job hosting Oktoberfest and putting up with tourists. I bet it would be even more amazing for me if I had unlimited funds and a deep appreciation for the taste and brewing processes of beer. But I don't. My thanks to Munich for a good time, though. Adios.
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