I figure I will take this time to catch up on my blogging as I have 8.5 hours to kill on this direct flight from Dublin to Orlando.
Oktoberfest 2014 - My story.
We all met up @ the airport in Munich around 11am. It didn't take long to find Robb, get back and find the S-Bahn (train) into the city center where our Hilton hotel located.
Although Robb was clearly the most tired of our group, we were all travel weary yet excited to finally make it to the festival.
The trip to the hotel took about 45 minutes. For whatever reason we decided to buy all day train passes, but quickly remembered that nobody in Munich actually pays for the train. I'm still confused by this, but nobody buys a ticket. Ever. You can jump on and off the trains in Munich all day long and nobody would give a damn.
We checked into our hotel around 12:30, changed clothes and headed for the train station. Prior to leaving, Jon bought authentic lederhosen and actually wore it. I had considered it, having been to the Weisn before, but at the last minute decided against it in fear that it wouldn't fit me.
As we navigated the train system over to Theresewiesn (the festival grounds) we saw more and more people wearing lederhosen and other authentic Bavarian costumes. We knew we were getting close & I was getting excited.
It was 2:00pm when we finally entered the festival. I was a bit concerned that it may be too early and that nobody would be there on a Sunday afternoon. Was I ever wrong.
We pushed our way into the Wiesn (Oktoberfest) fair like cattle being organized into a gate. On the other side were thousands of people moving in every direction, carnival rides with bright lights flashing, the loud ringing & dinging of games being played, children running around eating cotton candy, families waiting in lines to buy sausages & drinks from food vendors, early day drunks staggering from one beer tent to the next. Everyone in good spirits, laughing, dancing and singing.
We decided to head for the Haufbrauhas tent as Dan and I had great memories of it from last year. It was time for our first Maß (1 litre of bier).
Behind the Haufbrau Tent is a large hill that exits the fair in the direction of downtown. It's a gathering place for people as well as a place for the drunks to take a break. Many times the partiers who have "over imbibed" on the strong German bier, end up falling alseep on the hill. It was still early this day, but around sun down the hill can be quite full of passed out partiers and some of the finest people watching I can remember.
Dan and I knew from last year that we had to aggressively push our way into the crowd and force ourselves into standing by a table in order to purchase a drink. The bier servers can only serve patrons at tables and must set the Maß in the table. So we did just that. Within a few moments we were ordering our first Maß & quietly observing the loud crowd of people who were obviously much more intoxicated than us.
Our server, Sid & Louis from New Zealand pictured above.
It didn't take us long to make friends and get into the spirit of Oktoberfest. Maybe it's the friendly attitude of everyone or the music & food. Nah, what am I saying... It's the bier. The German bier is strong and its flowing as fast as you can drink it and everyone is drinking it. The songs are about drinking, people are playing games encouraging drinking, people are standing on tables having Maß drinking competitions with each other, the servers are calling you a wimp if you aren't ordering more. It's all about the bier. Bier and more bier.
So we drank bier.
A lot of it.
We tried our best to sing along with the German songs & got excited when they would play a silly version of an American song. It didn't matter though, we were making friends, eating German food and having a really good time.
Friends we made from Oregon.
As Americans (and Dan & I being big guys) we stood out a bit to other Americans. As the day progressed many others made their way to our table & introduced themselves.
We even had a friend from Italy offer us all a white powder substance he placed on his hand for us to snort up our nose.
I think we were all equally shocked when this happened, but later realized this is a commonly used tobacco product in Europe known as "nasal snuff" not an illicit drug. Lol. No, we didn't partake.
After 3 Maß.. My bladder was full. I had no choice but to leave my friends behind for a few minutes and use the facilities. I remembered just how disgusting this process was from last year and held out as long as I could. After telling the guys to "stay right here", "do not leave" I ventured into the land of filth known as the Wiesn water closet.
After first entering the woman's restroom not knowing which was which in the crowd, I was pointed in the direction of the "troughs".
As you can imagine this is a vile place and I'll spare you the details which included the man at the trough next to me splashing vomit on my shoe.
After leaving the trough I was encountered by a man who paid me 10€ to punch him as hard as I could in the stomach. After turning down the opportunity to slap a man in the face earlier (who asked me not to spare him) I decided to earn some cash this time. If the drunk Europeans thought of me as an arcade game and wanted to pay me to smack them around, I might as well make some € for doing it.
As you can imagine, I had quite a story to tell when I found my friends back at the table, and was ready for Maß 4.
Maß stacking with friends.
Maß 4 and 5 took place between 6 and 7pm. I can clearly remember finishing #5 and thinking to myself, "I'm hammered!" The rest of the night, well... Let's just say it's fuzzy.
We stayed at the same table until a tired Dan left us around 9.
A woman standing on a table chugging her Maß.
Above is the last picture I took this night.
I have hazy drunken memories of losing Jon, wandering around the Wiesn with Robb in the dark after it closed, losing Robb, wandering the streets of Münich, taking a cab all the way to the Airport Hilton and realizing that wasn't my hotel, then having to drive 30 more minutes to the right hotel. Fortunately the cab driver only charged me for the ride from the airport back.
I figured there were about 3 hours of memory brain cells that died on Sunday night. At 12:00am I sent a text to Robb from my Hilton bed asking if he was back?
Jon wasn't in his bed & Robb wasn't yet back and his phone was dead. Some how, even after my adventure, I was the 2nd person to return.
.......
Tuesday
I woke up to a snoring Jon around noon. My body felt like it had been through a war & there wasn't enough water in the sink to quench my dehydration. My eyes were bloodshot & I had a morbid stench of piss, stale bier & German sauce about me. Holy hell I felt bad.
By the looks of my shorts and shirt worn the day before, it appeared I had fallen down a few times on my journey to the hotel. There were hand marks, shoe prints & massive HP Sauce stains on my shirt. The shirt smelled like stale bier & Sauce. It was so foul, I had to get a picture to show the others. The others..... Were they back? I see Jon, but where was Robb?
I quickly checked my phone and saw a single text from Robb @ 1:05am.
He had made it back & charged his phone. All were accounted for and it was a new day.
We still have 2 more days in Münich!
Time to do it again!
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