The train felt like a James Bond movie with a narrow hallway along the side and private sleeper cars for groups of six passengers. We had just made our sandwiches, popped open our beverages when into our compartment walked an elderly lady and her blind husband... Neither party was too excited to see the others. The old lady just kept mumbling in English, "this is terrible" while Stu and I agreed profusely.
After making a few American friends in another compartment we settled into our tiny cabin for the night. Waking up in Munich, Germany we walked the two miles or so to our hostel, put our stuff in the baggage hold in the basement and immediately went over to Oktoberfest. The festival is a mix of rides, food and of course, beer. Costumed party-goers wandered around as we all hoped to get into a good beer tent.
We were lucky to get into the Hofbräuhaus, perhaps the most famous beer tent of all and inside was already utter chaos at 11 am. The beer comes in a stein, which is a liter glass and is a specialty Oktoberfest brew. To be considered an Oktoberfest beer and to be served at the festival, the beer must be made within Munich city limits and follow a strict recipe which puts the beverage at about 8% ABV. It doesn't take long to get a buzz and in case you're trying to milk your beer, there's a stage band playing drinking songs every few minutes in which you're obligated to cheers your table mates and take a swig. Between drinking songs the band plays everything from traditional German music to Rolling Stones, to Katy Perry to Disney movie songs.
Above, inside the tent and below, the house band up on stage...
Every few minutes, someone would stand up on a table and chug their beer. Depending on how they were doing the crowd would cheer or boo and throw things at them. Glad we didn't do that...
A couple of steins and a big brat...
The name of the game was pace but by about 8 pm we were somehow separated and ready to attempt to navigate back to the hostel. We both made it with varying degrees of success but at least we didn't pass out in the grass like some revelers...
Another beer tent. We were lucky it didn't rain till the second night which we only attended to grab some traditional food.
We didn't get a chance to really explore Munich as we were only their one and a half days before stu had to catch a flight back to the States and I had to move along to Paris, but I did get a chance to check out Olympic Park.
Beautiful grounds and stadium along with a bunch of other sports arenas. Even this cool space needle type building.
It was sad saying goodbye to Stu after two whirlwind weeks and amazing experiences!
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