Around the world in 2 years!: October 2007

9/28/07 – 9/30/07

Munich. The beauty of the city pleasantly surprised me, but that’s not really the TRUE reason why we went there this particular weekend. An event that’s an experience of a lifetime – Oktoberfest, was calling our names. Us being PC (Christina), myself, our co-workers from the France audit (5 people), and our co-workers from the Netherlands audit (2 people). Overall, a rather large group, but there wasn’t as much craziness as you would expect. I can sum up my day (yes, just one day) at Oktoberfest quite easily: Beer, Pretzels (among other food) and lots and lots of people! But that’s what Oktoberfest is all about. Not being a huge fan of ridiculously large crowds (and people entering my personal space), I only lasted from 10am – 7pm on Saturday and opted not to go back on Sunday despite our late flight out. I’m glad I went…it’s definitely something to see. The huge tents lined along both sides of the “street” and in the middle, just crowds of people walking along, drinking and eating to their hearts content. There were tents (tents being massively large beer tents that were sponsored by various German Breweries) that held up to 10,000 people and smaller ones that only held around 1,000 people. Inside these tents are rows and rows of picnic benches and tables as well as souvenir stands and waitresses (only women) carrying from 6 – 20 huge liters of beer to tables. Food pretty much consisted of pretzels (the largest I’ve ever seen!), chicken and bratwurst. I can’t complain though – I tried all of them and it was yummm!!! But then again, I rarely complain about food these days….maybe just that I eat too much of it.
So we arrived at the Beer Tent (Hofbrau) at 10am sharp and already came in contact with a HUGE crowd of people waiting outside to go in. You could reserve a table inside the beer tent, but even 9 months in advance people find it pretty difficult…you basically have to know someone to get a reservation or even get into a tent. It’s so ridiculous (and personally not worth it to me, but that’s my opinion). After 3 hours of waiting and getting to the “front” of the line, we realized that they weren’t planning to let any more people inside. So we gave up and just decided to enjoy the beer garden right outside! The only problem is that unless you have a table at the beer garden, it’s pretty difficult to find a waitress to serve you. That’s when our luck changed. My co-worker Holly and I got separated from the rest of the group and 2 random guys tapped me on my shoulder from behind. Typically it’s Holly who meets and talks to random people, but I played my part today. We briefly talked (they initially thought I was Latin/Hispanic) and then they offered to let Holly and I join them at their table for beers. By the way, these guys were mostly from Italy – apparently it was Italian weekend at Oktoberfest as I met NO Germans that day and lots of Italians. I grabbed Holly and we talked to these guys while they ordered us beers. We found my other co-workers and the group was back together! The random Italian guys were nice enough to order beers for all my co-workers too (we all paid for our own beers…we just sat at their table so we had access to a waitress). I wasn’t too interested in talking to these guys for very long, despite the fact that we ended up staying out in the beer garden for a good 5 hours, so I floated around (as I usually do in large crowds) and talked to random people and my co-workers. There’s only so much beer I can drink and only so much I can deal with drunk people – I was NOT drunk by the way…not wanting to take the chance to get separated from my group of have anything crazy happen – I enjoyed watching the craziness but didn’t partake in any myself. Around the time I was getting hungry/wanting to leave, one of my co-workers, Kevin, apparently found a way inside the tent. A waitress (an older one at that) happened to take a liking to him and offered to let him sit at one of her tables. He of course said yes but that he had to grab the rest of us. So we all ended up inside this tent – 1,000 people in total all dancing/singing on tables or drinking. We ordered some food and chowed down…around 7pm, I was just plain tired of the scene and was ready to head back to the hotel. PC and my other co-worker, Amanda, were ready for the same, so we left and cabbed it back to the hotel. And THAT was the end of my Oktoberfest experience. Most likely not as crazy as you would expect, but that kinda chaos is just not my thing. I definitely don’t regret going, but won’t be heading back there any time soon.
On Sunday, we had most of the day to kill before going to the airport, so PC and I decided to take a guided walking tour of Munich. I really enjoyed this!! It helped that our guide, a communications student herself, spoke wonderful English and did a fantastic job explaining the buildings that we saw. This is when I realized what a cute and clean city Munich is! We also wanted to check out the “Sleeping Beauty” castle a few hours outside of Munich, but no time for that one. We’ll have to go back at some point.
So that was Munich in a nutshell…beer, pretzels and people. Boy I need to hit the gym!