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This was by far the experience of a lifetime! Eilis casually brought up Oktoberfest about 2 days before it started (which is actually mid september... go figure) and we said oh we should try to go. I immediatly thought of my friend Ginny who is living in Germany as an au pair for the year, so I emailed her saying we were talking about going to Germany and Oktoberfest. Sure enough she was going for the last weekend of the festival and we decided to meet up with her!
Now incase you didn't know, unless you live in Munich, you don't just decided to go to Oktoberfest one week before and plan to find a place to sleep, tickets to a beer tent, and a way there and back, but thats exactly what we did. We got on the always trusty hostelworld and realized that any room would cost us easy 100 euros a night, so we decided that we would worry about it later and did nothing.
God was taking care of us mom, dont worry, because it all worked out. Ginny said we could stay with her bc her host parents got her a private room in the hotel! We were so excited. Thursday, the day before we were leaving for Munich and meeting up with Ginny, I get a phone call she might not be coming. Her host mom was really sick and might not be able to go so Ginny would be able to go. I told her to buy a bus ticket and get down to Munich, and we could work on getting a tent at a campsite we heard about that was outside of the city. Well turns out the parents didnt come, but the grandparents (who dont know any english) were coming so we met up with Ginny in Munich! After a very confusing time on the metro, a few wrong turns, and a confusing exit, we made it to Ginny and were so happy!
So Friday night while Ginny had dinner with her host extended family, Eilis and I headed to Oktoberfest to get a taste and it was the most overwhelming and exciting thing ever. I always pictured Oktoberfest as a few tables under a group of white tents (like festivals in Marion Square) and a couple of dinky rides like at a small local fair, boy was I wrong! We come up the metro escalator to lights and sounds and thousands of men and women of all ages in leaderhosen and corsette dresses and rides everywhere! It was sooooo crazy. The "beer tents" were infact real buildings, each the size of a convention center (there were 10 I believe) and the food, out of this world. After wandering around jaws on the ground, Eilis and I treated ourselves to chocolate covered strawberries, sugar coated pecans that seriously made me stop in my tracks and buy they smelled so good (and tasted even better)! We then had a 1/2 meter bratwurst! I was very excited about that (for those non-metric thinkers that is 1 1/2 feet). We then had our first experience of the deliciousness that is Oktoberfest liter beers (they only costed 10 euros and had an alchol content of 6.3% aka not dangerous in any way). Ginny met up with us after dinner with the family and we wandered for a bit, learned that Oktoberfest ends at 9:30, very early in my mind! But we werent worried because we knew the next day would be fun.... but really we had noooo idea!
So we slept in because we could! It was so nice being in a room just the three of us. I still wonder what the grandparents thought of us showing up and bunking with Ginny! They got us and we met up with a group of about 10 germans outside the hotel. We met the cousin who planned everything and bought the tickets ect. Then we were walking and enjoying how half our group had on leaderhosen and dresses. The next thing I know we are at a house and there are 40 germans, other than the cousin who planned it and his wife who were in there 30s, they are all over 50, most over 65! They are all friends and family of the host family and they all were sooo nice to us! They even gave us the host parents beer tent tickets and made sure we were taken care of the whole way to the festival. Only two knew english in our group of 40, and off we went to Oktoberfest with a group of germans dressed to the T and feeling like this is how it should be done!
Once we got to Theresienwiese, the field its held in, after an exhausting and overwhelmingly packed metro ride we had the cousin waving his wife's scarf for us to follow him and we meandered through the crowds single file behind tents, past many beirliechen (what germans call people passed out - beer courpse) and finally into the tent. We shuffle past crowds hanging outside in line till people leave so they can get in or just drinking outside in the beergardens. We are immediatly taken upstairs and are suddenly on a balcony overlooking the entire tent Hacker-Pschorr. We have four reserved tables and the family pushes us in one where we can overlook the entire going-ons down below! It is overwhelming. We learn that the tent holds just under 7,000 people as the worlds most delicious salty largest pretzels are placed before us! We also learn that our tickets that we were given have to be bought TWO YEARS in advanced and that HP is one of the first and most famous beer tents! We were overwhelmed with gratitude and joy as the grandparents continued spoiling us with coupons for one free beer each (basically giving you 10 euro)!
We had beer, talked, people watched a ton and took photos of the interesting things going on below. We also enjoyed the wonderful band we had in our tent, especially when they played the "Prost" song every thirty minutes where you had to cheers at the end. Not to mention it was one of the few words Eilis and I knew in German so whenever any of our german family made eye contact with us they would immediatly raise their glass and say Prost! It was awesome. The table behind us had people our age and we soon made friends and I was asked to dance a couple of times! It was so much fun and I loved every minute of it, even the long lines for the bathroom, especially the time I snuck in the exit when a girl was being held by the guard for doing the same thing! Also while waiting for Eilis and Ginny outside the bathroom, none other than John Denver "Country Roads" came on! Not only where they playing the lovely song that makes me think of thanksgivings with the cousins, but everybody knew it! All the Germans were belting it out at the top of their lungs! I joined in just in time for an old beer bellied leaderhosen and hat wearing German to walk by, stop, sing with me and proceed to give me the biggest hug, even lifting me off my feet! Crazy!
We ate brats and talked to Germans, danced, singed and had a good time. After my second liter I looked over at my new german drinking buddies only to see that they were all drinking me under the table! All of them were at least finishing their third! It put us to shame!
At 5:45 our table reservation ended and we unfortunatly had to leave our great seats and lovely family. We of course were not done and went down to face the masses with two new german friends from the table next to us. After 30 minutes fighting the crowd and smoke we left to wander the fair. No one would do any of the rides with me, next time I will go with braver people! We left the park and went to a couple of bars, talked a lot about music and ate delicious fries and of course more sugared pecans! All in all it was a phenominal and all things german day!
The next morning was an early wakeup from Ginny's grandparents picking her up to leave! The grandpa walks in and has a huge scratch and bruise on his nose and two black eyes! Ginny asks him what happened but she didnt really understand them (lack of German kicking in) I find out later from her that he has no idea. All he knows is that he all of a sudden he was gushing blood from his nose and rushed to the hospital in an ambulance where the Grandma had to go and get him after a phone call and expensive medical bill. How he broke it, who was with him, how he was lost by the Grandma is just a part of Oktoberfest that we will never know. I am sticking with the story that he got in a huge fight after sticking up for a girl being harassed and the broken nose came from a liter stien, although the more likely culprit is the ground from a hard fall. I also took about the entire day to recover and decided people that spend more than one day in those tents are crazy and have some deeper reserve than I ever will!
Eilis left in the early afternoon to visit family in Hamburg and Denmark and I had a bus to Prague but not until 11 pm. So I had the afternoon to myself. I wandered around the city, saw the sites and sat in the beautiful park. It was the first beautiful sunny day in a while and I took advantage of it before my long bus ride to Prague. I also found out that there was a small church in the city doing a mass in english at 6! It was so great going to mass and understanding it and the feeling that somethings, no matter where you are, are still the same. In the end I decided that Germany has indeed stolen a piece of my heart! I loved all of my time there and everyone was so friendly, the history rich, and the food impecable! So thank you to all those who insisted I go to Germany, and any one who hasn't, you are missing out!
This was by far the experience of a lifetime! Eilis casually brought up Oktoberfest about 2 days before it started (which is actually mid september... go figure) and we said oh we should try to go. I immediatly thought of my friend Ginny who is living in Germany as an au pair for the year, so I emailed her saying we were talking about going to Germany and Oktoberfest. Sure enough she was going for the last weekend of the festival and we decided to meet up with her!
Now incase you didn't know, unless you live in Munich, you don't just decided to go to Oktoberfest one week before and plan to find a place to sleep, tickets to a beer tent, and a way there and back, but thats exactly what we did. We got on the always trusty hostelworld and realized that any room would cost us easy 100 euros a night, so we decided that we would worry about it later and did nothing.
God was taking care of us mom, dont worry, because it all worked out. Ginny said we could stay with her bc her host parents got her a private room in the hotel! We were so excited. Thursday, the day before we were leaving for Munich and meeting up with Ginny, I get a phone call she might not be coming. Her host mom was really sick and might not be able to go so Ginny would be able to go. I told her to buy a bus ticket and get down to Munich, and we could work on getting a tent at a campsite we heard about that was outside of the city. Well turns out the parents didnt come, but the grandparents (who dont know any english) were coming so we met up with Ginny in Munich! After a very confusing time on the metro, a few wrong turns, and a confusing exit, we made it to Ginny and were so happy!
So Friday night while Ginny had dinner with her host extended family, Eilis and I headed to Oktoberfest to get a taste and it was the most overwhelming and exciting thing ever. I always pictured Oktoberfest as a few tables under a group of white tents (like festivals in Marion Square) and a couple of dinky rides like at a small local fair, boy was I wrong! We come up the metro escalator to lights and sounds and thousands of men and women of all ages in leaderhosen and corsette dresses and rides everywhere! It was sooooo crazy. The "beer tents" were infact real buildings, each the size of a convention center (there were 10 I believe) and the food, out of this world. After wandering around jaws on the ground, Eilis and I treated ourselves to chocolate covered strawberries, sugar coated pecans that seriously made me stop in my tracks and buy they smelled so good (and tasted even better)! We then had a 1/2 meter bratwurst! I was very excited about that (for those non-metric thinkers that is 1 1/2 feet). We then had our first experience of the deliciousness that is Oktoberfest liter beers (they only costed 10 euros and had an alchol content of 6.3% aka not dangerous in any way). Ginny met up with us after dinner with the family and we wandered for a bit, learned that Oktoberfest ends at 9:30, very early in my mind! But we werent worried because we knew the next day would be fun.... but really we had noooo idea!
So we slept in because we could! It was so nice being in a room just the three of us. I still wonder what the grandparents thought of us showing up and bunking with Ginny! They got us and we met up with a group of about 10 germans outside the hotel. We met the cousin who planned everything and bought the tickets ect. Then we were walking and enjoying how half our group had on leaderhosen and dresses. The next thing I know we are at a house and there are 40 germans, other than the cousin who planned it and his wife who were in there 30s, they are all over 50, most over 65! They are all friends and family of the host family and they all were sooo nice to us! They even gave us the host parents beer tent tickets and made sure we were taken care of the whole way to the festival. Only two knew english in our group of 40, and off we went to Oktoberfest with a group of germans dressed to the T and feeling like this is how it should be done!
Once we got to Theresienwiese, the field its held in, after an exhausting and overwhelmingly packed metro ride we had the cousin waving his wife's scarf for us to follow him and we meandered through the crowds single file behind tents, past many beirliechen (what germans call people passed out - beer courpse) and finally into the tent. We shuffle past crowds hanging outside in line till people leave so they can get in or just drinking outside in the beergardens. We are immediatly taken upstairs and are suddenly on a balcony overlooking the entire tent Hacker-Pschorr. We have four reserved tables and the family pushes us in one where we can overlook the entire going-ons down below! It is overwhelming. We learn that the tent holds just under 7,000 people as the worlds most delicious salty largest pretzels are placed before us! We also learn that our tickets that we were given have to be bought TWO YEARS in advanced and that HP is one of the first and most famous beer tents! We were overwhelmed with gratitude and joy as the grandparents continued spoiling us with coupons for one free beer each (basically giving you 10 euro)!
We had beer, talked, people watched a ton and took photos of the interesting things going on below. We also enjoyed the wonderful band we had in our tent, especially when they played the "Prost" song every thirty minutes where you had to cheers at the end. Not to mention it was one of the few words Eilis and I knew in German so whenever any of our german family made eye contact with us they would immediatly raise their glass and say Prost! It was awesome. The table behind us had people our age and we soon made friends and I was asked to dance a couple of times! It was so much fun and I loved every minute of it, even the long lines for the bathroom, especially the time I snuck in the exit when a girl was being held by the guard for doing the same thing! Also while waiting for Eilis and Ginny outside the bathroom, none other than John Denver "Country Roads" came on! Not only where they playing the lovely song that makes me think of thanksgivings with the cousins, but everybody knew it! All the Germans were belting it out at the top of their lungs! I joined in just in time for an old beer bellied leaderhosen and hat wearing German to walk by, stop, sing with me and proceed to give me the biggest hug, even lifting me off my feet! Crazy!
We ate brats and talked to Germans, danced, singed and had a good time. After my second liter I looked over at my new german drinking buddies only to see that they were all drinking me under the table! All of them were at least finishing their third! It put us to shame!
At 5:45 our table reservation ended and we unfortunatly had to leave our great seats and lovely family. We of course were not done and went down to face the masses with two new german friends from the table next to us. After 30 minutes fighting the crowd and smoke we left to wander the fair. No one would do any of the rides with me, next time I will go with braver people! We left the park and went to a couple of bars, talked a lot about music and ate delicious fries and of course more sugared pecans! All in all it was a phenominal and all things german day!
The next morning was an early wakeup from Ginny's grandparents picking her up to leave! The grandpa walks in and has a huge scratch and bruise on his nose and two black eyes! Ginny asks him what happened but she didnt really understand them (lack of German kicking in) I find out later from her that he has no idea. All he knows is that he all of a sudden he was gushing blood from his nose and rushed to the hospital in an ambulance where the Grandma had to go and get him after a phone call and expensive medical bill. How he broke it, who was with him, how he was lost by the Grandma is just a part of Oktoberfest that we will never know. I am sticking with the story that he got in a huge fight after sticking up for a girl being harassed and the broken nose came from a liter stien, although the more likely culprit is the ground from a hard fall. I also took about the entire day to recover and decided people that spend more than one day in those tents are crazy and have some deeper reserve than I ever will!
Eilis left in the early afternoon to visit family in Hamburg and Denmark and I had a bus to Prague but not until 11 pm. So I had the afternoon to myself. I wandered around the city, saw the sites and sat in the beautiful park. It was the first beautiful sunny day in a while and I took advantage of it before my long bus ride to Prague. I also found out that there was a small church in the city doing a mass in english at 6! It was so great going to mass and understanding it and the feeling that somethings, no matter where you are, are still the same. In the end I decided that Germany has indeed stolen a piece of my heart! I loved all of my time there and everyone was so friendly, the history rich, and the food impecable! So thank you to all those who insisted I go to Germany, and any one who hasn't, you are missing out!
