So here is the long overdue entry on Oktoberfest. First off I just want to say I updated about Oktoberfest, but I did it on a word document with the intention of updating my actually blog, but didn’t get around to it, so it’s been sitting on my desktop for a bit. And I will eventually get PARIS updated asap!
The weekend began at 4:30am. We left our housing and walked the one-hour walk into Ramstein to get to the train station. Our train was supposed to arrive at 5:55am… but for some reason, it didn’t come. SO we all froze our butts off waiting and wondering if the train would ever come… and it didn’t. So we had to call a taxi and took it to the main train station in Landstuhl where we were supposed to take a connecting train to Munich. After much rushing and a bit of panic, we got where we needed to go and made it on our train. We arrived at Munich, found our hostel, but there were so many people wanting to check in that we decided to drop off our stuff in a locker and go straight to Oktoberfest. Our hostel is called "the tent" and we paid to sleep on the floor of a tent, and it was exactly how I imagined it - a HUGE tent, with mats and blankets (provided) on the floor, and you sleep where you find space! It was quite an experience. When we finally checked in, and they asked us how many blankets the guy who checked us in promised us, I replied "He promised to keep us warm" =D haha we got 3 blankets each!!
When we got there, we just followed the large crowd towards the festival, and it was a HUGE crowd – almost like a migration of people just herding towards one general direction. This place was Wine fest x 1000! We walked around, watched the drunk people stumble, and just explored for a bit. By this time, our group of six separated into two groups of three, which made exploring in the mass so much easier. I had a ½ meter long CURRYWURST and that was soooo amazingly delicious! Hahah and I also had a chocolate covered apple… YUMMM I know for sure I will never find chocolate like this in the states, so I figure I should take advantage of it and enjoy it while it lasts.
We stumbled upon this HUGE hill that we deemed “Pass-out Hill”, and made comments how you’d pass out at the top of the hill and you’d wake up at the bottom. There were SO many drunk people on the hill, but we were there to sit and look out over Oktoberfest and just chill a bit. Here is where we met some Italian guys who wanted to take pictures of us. This is also when I realized my one year of Italian was kinda uselss… =/ Anyway, we had been playing a game where when guys would approach us and ask us for our name, we’d give a different name each time and see if we can remember our each other’s “name”. This time my name was Sharon, and we had an Emma Watson, and Julley was Janet. Ironically though, they asked for our full names so they can find us on facebook -.- so we had to lie again, but I suck at that, but it was pretty funny. Close to sunset, we wanted to go to the Haufbrau tent, which is supposed to be the most famous tent.
We get to the front, and there’s a HUGE crowd of people trying to get in, but apparently it’s full so security wasn’t letting people in. Long story short, 6 girls, 1 kitchen staff worker, a side door through the kitchen, and we’re in! hahah =D it was lots of fun… for a bit. I don’t think I could’ve done that all night… lots of music, food, beer, and drunk people. It was also soo crowded I was done after I walked through once. This really nice guy shared his table with us and got us a stein of beer, which we shared between the 6 of us, and we took pictures and just had fun.
Btw, European guys… all about kissing… BIG no-no! haha some Italian guys we met tried to tell us that they kiss three times when greeting, one kiss on each cheek and one kiss on the lips. CHYEAH RIGHT! After a while, Julley, Cat, and I wanted to leave, and on our way out, we stumbled upon stairs leading upstairs! So we went upstairs, and I liked it a lot better there, sure the people were still kinda drunk, but they were a lot calmer. We met this nice group of people, where the guy is from Ireland, but had been living in Germany for about 10 years and has a family here, and his friend from Indiana? Or somewhere in the states, but has been in Germany for close to 20 years. They get a table at Oktoberfest every year, and when they asked if we already had a drink and we told them we shared one stein w/ 6 people he said “that’s against the law here” =P cool guys. After all that, we decided to head back to our hostel, “the tent” – but not until we got some SCHNITZEL!
I slept in the middle between Julley and Cat and I was warm the whole night =D
Sunday, we went back to Oktoberfest, checked it out in the morning, went on the ferris wheel, did some haggling for some souvenirs, and checked out the church in the center of town. We also stopped by the tent we were at the night before, and grabbed a stein glass as a souvenir! haha we had to to hide it cuz they don't let you take the HUGE glasses out if they catch you with it, but we were slick! =) We also went to a park and just hung out there a bit, winded down our weekend, and then headed back home. On our way home, we stopped by a store that sold the traditional costume things, I don't know what it's called, but we tried a bunch on!
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Paris was BEAUTIFUL! And I will update about that another time.
Work is becoming routine, although the waking up at 5am part will never be =(
I miss home and everyone at home, and if you sent me something, I promise you will get something back when I can find some time for it. There will be at least a couple of weekends where I won’t plan to travel and can spend that time catching up on things I need to do like returning letters, updating my blog, and uploading my pictures.
Can't believe I've already been here a month!!!
