Munich & Oktoberfest!

Whoa, Oktoberfest...

After finally meeting up with my brother in the train station, which was much bigger than we expected, so that was interesting...

We stayed most nights at a place called the Tent. It was basically a huge tent with bunkbeds that were barely sturdy enough to sleep on, so everytime somebody moved, the whole thing moved. It was interesting. But, it was pretty cheap compared to everything else, so we were pretty happy about that.

Our first day of Oktoberfest, which also happen to be opening day, was the best. We randomly met a local Bavarian named Mike and ended up hanging out with him and eventually his brother the whole evening.

After unsuccessfully waiting in line for Augustiner's for a while, we ran out of beer in hand and went to look for alternatives. Cormac and Erin, on their quest for more line beer, somehow met the right person and got us into the tent across the way through the back entrance. So we ended up hanging out in Paulaner that night. It had a much cooler name too, but I can't remember it at the moment... Ambros...brau.

With the guidance of our Bavarian, we quickly found a table full of fun people that let us sit with them for long enough to order a beer, since you can't order unless you are seated at a table. We ended up hanging out with the table behind and across the isle for a few hours, till they turned over the tables for reservations. So, after unsuccessfully trying to pretend that we belonged there, we moved on and found new friends.

This was a great moved, we ended up two rows over from the band in the middle of the tent, where everybody is up on the benches most of the time, singing at the top of their lungs. It was a ton of fun. We had awesome food-duck and pretzel, it was fantastic. And... lots of beer, by the Moss.

The other nights in the tents were cool, but just never quite lived up to that first night.

A couple of the days, since we were there for 5, we did some walking around Munich and Touristy stuff. We accidentally stumbled into this huge park that happened to be quite filled with naked people. Well, ok, finding the park was on purpose, but we didn't know about the naked people till we got there. Mostly old men... quite entertaining.

We found a spot on the river that runs through town, where the water hits at just the right angle, I guess, and creates a big wave that a bunch of people were surfing on. That was really cool. I took video, once I can actually upload pics, if it ever happens.

We checked out the Haufbrau house, of course. The perminent one, not the tent. And we did actual laundry, with a washer and dryer. This is very exciting for me by this point in the trip.

Our days in between the tents were pretty mellow. Weird, but we were tired.

Oktoberfest is quite the experience. I'd do it again, but only if I were able to get a bed with fewer people in the room so that I can actually sleep.