TravBlog: Oktoberfest!

It wouldn’t be a proper October in Europe without partaking in some sort of Oktoberfest activities. We decided to go all out and go into the center of all the action – Munich, Germany! The crew: 14 individuals with no regard for their livers: me, Mark, Vi, Van, Rachel, Andy, Nat, Cuong, Chi, Bela, Tori, Abby, Ceira and John. The setting: 2.5 days at the Munich beer tents. The outcome: one great party!

Mark and I were latecomers to the party, arriving on a Friday evening. Since everybody was spent from 10 hours of non-stop drinking, we decided to find our own party, and didn’t have to go far. All the Oktoberfest action in Munich is concentrated around an area of (massive) drinking tents, surrounded by seasonal fair grounds. We were very pleasantly surprised to discover that all the glorified Oktoberfest stereotypes you see on TV are true: sea of people all dressed in traditional lederhosen and beer maid costumes, German drinking songs, 1 liter steins, pretzels, bratwurst and gingerbread hearts…the only stereotype that was not true is the das boot stein…it does not exist in Oktoberfest, or maybe we just weren’t cool enough to see it.

We managed to sneak into one tent (the name of which I would never be able to remember in a million years as German is just not my forte) and were instantly blown away by the atmosphere! These Germans have clearly been drinking for the last 10-12 hours, and half the tent was already dancing on the tables to a German band set up in the middle of the tent to play classic German and American songs, and of course, German drinking songs. We downed a couple of steins and took it to the streets to enjoy the fair…which was pretty much like The Ex, minus the children, as nobody was in a state to look after anyone there hehe. We enjoyed a couple of tipsy rides (best way to do rides, really), and some delicious German snacks before calling it a night, as the next day was the big day.

It’s a good thing that our friends have done Oktoberfest before, as they were able to teach us some good rules that kept us out of trouble. Rule number one: have a big breakfast, as you need a good base for a day of drinking beer. Rule number two: get up early to get in. Just because everybody was drunk the night before, doesn’t mean that the tents won’t be full by 9 am. We didn’t have wristbands that gave us admission into the tent, so we had to rely on a bit of luck and street smarts to get in. We managed to make our way into the Augusteiner tent after being selected by our server and lead in (the servers are occasionally known to pop outside and grab groups of people to place in their sections…I guess they are banking on big drinkers). That server was wicked – she even had some beers with us. Still don’t know how she can do that and manage to carry 8 liters of beer at a time all day long. What a talent!

Day 2 went something like this: start drinking at 9:30, make friends with people at your table, lose new friends because they had to leave due to being too drunk, make new friends with new people at your table, get joined by late comer friends: Tori, Abby, Ceira and John, get latecomers drunk quickly, have some pork knuckle, cheese and pretzel for lunch, walk around and get gingerbread hearts, drink some more, dance on the tables, watch people have chugging contests, have your last stein at 4 and exit the tent to join the fair, get more tasty German food, go on rides (not a good idea for some people, as some lost their lunch while others their phone…), aaaaand go home to get your beauty rest J All in all, a pretty amazing time!

Day 3 was pretty well a replication of day 2, but in a different tent, and we had to leave at 3 to catch our plane back to London. It’s also when I learned rule number 3: don’t fly intoxicated, it’s not fun. See you next year, Oktoberfest! Here’s a recap of our Oktoberfesting in pix:

Tipsy rides