Oktoberfest!!!!

Basically, it's like one huge carnival / international frat party where about 5 million liters of beer are consumed each year. Fantastic! This weekend was all that I had expected and SO much more. Definitely topping the list of best weekends ever! This is going to be a long update, but only because so many of you requested mucho details from Oktoberfest.

So Cait and I left Newcastle at 6:45am on Friday morning to hop on the metro and get to the train station, then headed up to Edinburgh on the train, jumped on a bus to the airport, then flew into Munich at 2:45. Insanely busy and hectic day, but Anna and Janine were waiting at the airport for us. After an hour, Clarice's plane had landed and the 5 of us made our way to the HotelPension Zum Gockl in Allershausen (one of Munich's cute countryside suburbs). We checked in to two absolutely gorgeous hotel rooms that were SO much better than what we had expected. On the hunt to find traditional German food, we walked a mile or so into town to find a restaurant. They didn't speak much English, but with the help of my lovely European language phrase book we were able to translate enough to actually order something edible. By the way ... wurst and sausages are totally overrated. After a long day of traveling and exploring Allershausen (and to rest up for the big party the next day), we all crashed relatively early and tried to get some sleep. But honestly ... 5 college girls counting down the hours until Oktoberfest are like a bunch of little kids waiting for Santa ... WAY to excited to sleep much!

6am wake up call .... BEERFEST! We all got up ridiculously early because we knew the lines at the beer tents were going to be absolutely insane on the final weekend of Oktoberfest 2007. Naturally, we monopolized on the free breakfast at the hotel and caught a cab to the nearest train station to head into Munich. SO crowded on the trains. And you would think that people would be sober going to the biggest keg party in the world?? Heck no, all these German guys were pre-gaming and downing beers on the metro. Classy. Half the guys were dressed in lederhosen (the traditional German garb), which just made me happy. We leave the metro in a giant swarm of people, not knowing where the heck we find this Oktoberfest. Our idea? "Follow the lederhosen!" Seriously, all we had to do was follow the mass exodus from the train station and join the swarms of people on a pilgrimage towards the tents. Get lost? Just follow the smell of the beer!
I was expecting kind of like an huge field party with tents set up on grass and everything. Oh no. This was like a giant carnival and massive buildings that they claim to be "tents" where everyone just drinks and is insanely happy all day long. We ended up at the Hofbrau Festzelt tent (which is apparently the most popular and famous tent ... who knew?) and had a wild time. even at 9am there was a huge line outside ... and by line I really mean mosh pit. Picture one huge international spooning session, and you've got the mess that is the Oktoberfest beer tent lines. Even though the 5 girls linked arms and tried not to get separated, at one point I was surrounded by an Aussie, an Italian, and a German guy. All I saw was shoulders for a while since I'm so small, and I think I was basically picked up and moved by the crowd in the stampede once the doors opened. After while of waiting, we finally pushed our way into a tent and found a bit of table to squish in at. Well, even though we were in Germany, somehow us girls managed to find Little Italy. Mostly everyone in out section spoke Italian, and luckily Anna and Janine could translate since they're studying in Rome. As soon as you find a seat, the beer maids come over and take orders. Liters of beer literally as big as my head. Who starts drinking at 9:30am? Oh yeah ... EVERYONE at Oktoberfest. Hilarious. And German beer was absolutely amazing. But we mingled and met SO many different people from all over the world, and naturally between the beer and atmosphere of Oktoberfest everyone is uber-friendly. It's seriously the best keg party in the world. I'll definitely want to go back.
We stayed in the first tent for a few hours, and after we downed a couple beers and huge pretzels we headed outside to see the rest of the party. People everywhere just lining the streets still drinking, eating and selling everything you can imagine. We found a shop with souvenir beer steins and T-shirts, then went in search of more food. Chocolate strawberries were by far the most phenomenal food I had all weekend. I'm not such a huge fan of Bratwurst, but at least I tried it. After lunch we hopped to another beer tent and made new friends, and walked around the carnival some more. We managed to sneak out with our liter beer mugs from the second tent (poor college students and free souvenirs ... amazing!).
We ended up leaving the largest beer fest on earth sometime in the late evening, maybe around 8 or so. We found dinner, took the train back to our hotel, and crashed in bed by 10:30. It was so early for us to be crashing, but considering we had been up since 6am and partying since 9am, we figured it was a pretty good showing.
We awoke around 7 the next morning refreshed and ready to tour Munich. We packed up our backpacks and suitcases and took the taxis and trains into the heart of Munich. We saw the new city hall center, the Rathaus, with it's famous Glockenspiel. Unfortunately, the Glockenspiel is under renovation and everything is pretty much closed on Sundays, so we couldn't go to the top to get an aerial view of the city. But we enjoyed the atmosphere of the town square, saw an oompah band on the street, and had one more traditional German meal ... with beer, of course. Sunday was just a nice relaxing day to take in the city before heading our separate ways back to Newcastle, Paris, and Rome. We took the train back to the airport and all flew out of Munich.

So about 64 hours later I arrived back in Newcastle late Sunday night. As usual, the entire block of flats was in my apartment since we're the only ones with a TV and everyone was happy to see me. Apparently, they missed their "Little America" this weekend. I'm glad to be back. Now it's off to classes, rugby practice, and a campus-wide bar crawl.