Oktoberfest: oh my!

Since Munich is only a 2 hr train ride from Salzburg, we found some amazing tickets that cost only €6.50 round trip for the day (which cost about €3 less than any beer we bought that day). Well let’s see what I have to say about the experience. Note that pictures will be uploaded soon... The following was scribbled on our journey back from this interesting event:

8-22
So we’re on the train back from Munich and oh what an interesting visit it was… The day started out with a painfully early 6:00am wake up. In one of the boys’ rooms, two alarms failed to perform and they were woken up about 10 minutes before our bus left to the train station, I feel like this kind of stuff happens way too often to us. Once on the train, we thoroughly enjoyed our cheap two hour ride to Munich by sleeping the whole way. We arrived and followed the massive crowd of dirndl and lederhosen outside the station and it appeared we got there just in time for the opening of the fest parade (this was the first day of the Oktoberfest). Essentially every brewery in the city hosted their own section of the parade. Each had a marching band clad in lederhosen, a carriage hosting some important person and family, an uncovered wagon led by horses carrying durndl-clad women throwing flowers to the crowd or drinking heartily, but usually both, and finally a wagon full of the brewery’s Festbier led by horses with hooves the size of a prize-winning turnip. Strange similies aside, there was a strange habit I realized I developed. Whenever the band would start to play, I would instinctively lick my lips as if I too was going to play with them. I feel like this habit will haunt me the rest of my life. I guess it’s my secret dream to put on some leather shorts and a funny hat and march around with my trumpet. Well it’s not a secret; I openly admit this is my ultimate life goal.

We kind of entered this trip cold-turkey, no Rick Steves to guide us, terrifying, I know. I only Wikipedia’d it last night in order to get an over-all history of this international event infamous for debauchery. Most of my research said not to go on the first or last weekend of the two week event (especially the opening day) as there would be too many people there. Well, we were leaving in 6 hours so there was nothing we could do about it, plus it was the only day we could leave our new prison, the Heftie. This information proved to be accurate since we faced some major crowd problems the minute we reached the fest. Pretty much all of the Bierzelts (beer-tent) were full and we couldn’t even look inside one. The whole event looked like a large county or state fair with large beer tents instead of the carnival of products and deep fried ox tails instead of deep fried Twinkies. After wandering around the fairgrounds for an hour, searching for food and a place to sit for over 3 hours in the burning sun (we were in desperate need for a cold beer), we finally found a place outside one of the tents in the ‘Biergarten.’ During one point in all of this, Madelaine made a friend with a piece of trash named ‘Albert’ consisting of a napkin, cardboard, and some mustard who refused to leave us alone.

Al and Albert

Four of us squeezed into a spot, previously occupied by 2 people and we ended up sitting next to a group of German students from Munich. They were not too excited about sitting next to us at first but they soon lightened up once we started speaking to them in German (and after they finished their first beer). Plus we finally got our beer! It was fun and amusing talking to them and they gave us some rather interesting advice such as: you can check out other girls without your girlfriend knowing by wearing Al’s headband over your eyes, (as one of us was putting on sunscreen) putting on sunscreen 3-4 hours after being in the sun is like putting on a condom after 30 minutes of sex – pointless, and they taught the girls in our group a word to tell a man that they just want to sleep. Essentially the important stuff Frau Offenberger never taught us. Other events during our trip included the fact that Al had a rather fat-bottomed girl literally sit on her for about an hour and was thoroughly abused as everyone in the vicinity kept sweeping their crumbs into her shoes! The poor thing.

Fat Bottom sits on Al's bottom

Oh and at one point a pregnant woman sitting near us randomly fainted. She was okay but we were overall kind of confused why a pregnant woman would even go to an event glorifying alcohol, Mad would also like me to point out that she was awkwardly wearing 4 inch heels. Nevertheless, we finally got our much-earned beer.

We discovered the hard way that the beer at Oktoberfest is actually twice as alcoholic as normal beer, so a Maß (liter) of beer is equivalent to 6 drinks. Unknowingly, most of us drank two in about two hours. Specifics of the next few hours aside, let’s just say it’s a real lucky thing we managed to find the train station and that we’re on our way back to Salzburg now (at least I think this is where the train is going).

We were on the right train and celebrated our arrival back to Salzburg with Doner Kababs

In conclusion, Oktoberfest was quite an experience, while really hot, sweaty, crowded, and stressful, it was still a lot of fun to join our Bavarian neighbors in the joys of fermented grain sludge. As I watch drunk lederhosen-clad Austrians stumble around the train car, I think that while I’m in no hurry to get back to this touristy, expensive event, I’m glad I got to experience it once in my life.

Well there you have it.