Oktoberfest

Despite being up an hour before we had to meet up with Anna and Michael, we were very rushed, Julie more than me. Dressed in the traditional dress, me in Lederhose, Julie in a Dindel, we made our very early walk to Anna’s. I have to say I felt very weird, Julie was smiling though, something unusual to see so early in the morning. I was hoping to get a coffee from the Black Bean, and Julie was hoping for a Chai, but as tight as our time table was, we had to skip out on it. Once we arrived at Anna’s, we made our Pilgrimage to the central train station. We made it to the train station at 8:40, our train left at 8:45 for Munich, so we rushed to go get a ticket. You see, they have an offer for Oktoberfest that for 25 euros, up to 5 people can travel to Munich from anywhere in Bavaria. At least, there seems to be a catch in Regensburg. The train for Munich leaves at 8:45 and the special pass is only valid for travel after 9am, the next train for Munich would leave at around 11. So we needed to make this train to be sure to get into a beer tent. We were unable to purchase individual ride tickets for the first 15 minutes because of the lack of time we had so we rode illegally until 9am. Luck at least was on our side, because the guy who was checking train tickets did not come by us until 9:05 and there was one stop made during that time. It would have been a 40 euro fine each for riding without a valid ticket. So at 9am, Michael handed out the provisions, funny how only the guys wanted a beer. About two hours later we were in Munich’s main train station, I still had my second beer with me and was walking around the station. This was another weird situation for me, as I couldn’t believe that it is completely legal to drink alcohol in public. The group of Police men that walked past us didn’t even give us a second look. So far it was turning out to be a great day. We stopped off at a small bakery in the station and grabbed ourselves a toasted open faced cheesy bacon sandwich and some medium sized pretzels. Emerging from the subway with the hordes of people we made our way to the festival grounds. At first glance it appears to be like any other fair. They have rides, games and food stalls. Except some of the food stalls sell more then your average snack, they sell full meals as well. Oh, and then there’s the beer tents. Now most fairs have beer tents too, except there are around a dozen here and the one we went into can hold up to 10,000 people inside and another 5,000 in the beer garden. It was roughly 11 when we made our way into the large tent it was only about a quarter full. Some people were already drunk though. It was decorated with large wreaths with blue and white ribbons (the Bavarian colours and the colour of the flag) and in the center of it all is a raised platform for the Oompa band which started playing at noon. They also had the symbol of the beer being served which I can’t remember. It was a fantastic day. We met lots of people and experienced much as well. All in all, it ran us 90 euros for the day/night and we were pretty sloppy (me especially) by the end of it. You can tell by the photos that we were all ruined when we decided to leave to catch the last train home. By the end of the night it was pretty difficult to walk around the place as there were so many people. We can’t wait to do it again. Next time though, I’m going to get a place in town as the train ride/walk home was pretty rough. Just ask Julie.