Well having not written for a while I figured I should at least do a post on our trip to Munich and Oktoberfest. Unfortunately with Internet at a premium I’m not sure when it will get posted. I am currently on a train heading to Amsterdam. But I’ll start back a couple days…
Saturday we met up with a friend of ours, Julie, whom we met 5 years ago on our contiki trip. After seeing her in Melbourne a couple years ago when we were in Oz for Shauns wedding it was nice to realize she is currently living in London, or at least right outside. She works about 15 min tube ride from us. Anyway we met her for some supper and a few drinks and then headed out to stansted airport. So London has 4 airports - heathrow, gatwick Stansted and London city centre. Heathrow is the most convenient for us to get to but is the most expense to fly out of. Easy jet flies out of stansted an gatwick. As our flight left at like 7am we opted to splurge and stayed at a hotel out by the airport. A good choice I think! The next day we were off to Munich. We arrived with only hand baggage in tow and got on the S-Bahn to get to our hotel. Despite the language barrier the public transit system is very easy to navigate!
Our room wasn’t ready when we got there around 11 so we went into town to Hofbrauhaus where Bryce enjoyed 5 steins last visit to Munchen :) This time we had only one stein. The place was packed - everyone visiting the beer garden after or before Oktoberfest. Our waiter sucked big time. He was not coping well with the stress of the busy hall that’s for sure. Bryce had had his heart on having a pork knuckle to eat as he had been thinking of it since eating one 5 years ago. After asking our waiter 3 times if we could order food only to be ignored we promptly left our table (we were sitting with some really drunk Belgium guys - one so smashed that by the time we left he passed out with his head on the table) to eat at the hard rock cafe. Not very German but we were starving. We took the long way back to the hotel looking at some sights and stumbling upon a concert at one point which was really funny as they were singing popular songs in German acapella :)
After finally checking into our hotel and freshening up we were out to see Oktoberfest at night. It can only be described as crazy. Oktoberfest is not as I had expected - I had thought maybe some tents set up on a grassy ground but it’s more like the CNE just with lots of beer! The tents are more like large buildings and by nightfall are PACKED and loud with everyone singing and drinking. Oh and wearing their Leiderhosen or Dredl (female version). There was Leiderhosen everywhere. The first tent we went into was one called the Hippodrome. It was beautiful inside - res and yellow stripes, two levels and horses carved out of wood hanging from the ceiling. While packed it was the most civil of the tents we witnessed. The Hopfbrauhaus tent was manic with people standing on the tables singing - no room to move at all. We spent that night peaking in the tents and also going on the giant ferris wheel. It was very high and scary bit the view from the top with the fair all lit up was beautiful.
The next day after having gotten up early to make what can only be called disappointing selections for the London Film Fest online (most of what I wanted to see already fully booked) we made our way to Oktoberfest again b
We set up in the Augustiner tent - a large green striped affair. We managed to find a seat with two French guys -Jan and Bruno - who are currently living in Athens. After seeing how quickly the remaining space in here filled up we abandoned hope of tent hopping and settled in here for the afternoon. The beer was good and the company quite good as well. We ended up chatting also with a German table over from us - Daniel and Elena- and learned a lot about German culture and such. They were good to help translate the menu as well. Besides from the obvious pretzel we ate a Hendle (chicken that tastes like Swiss chalet except even better) and some bin with bacon and cheese on it. German food was definitely yummy yesterday! I had 2 steins of beer here (some mixed with lemonade - a Radler) and enjoyed learning the German drinking songs. Haha.
We left here to try and venture out a bit 5 hours later than we had started. Ended up at an outside beer garden where we ran into a Canadian who is going to the same Boston bruins game as us in Prague in a couple weeks. Had one more stein here, another Hendle and then ventured to the bumper cars and a fun house which was great fun after all that beer!! We even bought a cookie there - doesn’t seem like a big thing but you can buy these large Ginger cookies on ribbons that people wear around their necks. Very cute. We also ate some chocolate covered strawberries on a skewer (big sellers there) a brautwurst on a really tasty bin and some roasted almonds covered in sugar. Yumm! We definitely weren’t hurting for food. Though I do have a bit of a craving for a salad right Now!!
After waking up at 8 this morning we caught a train out of Munich - we even had our own private room on it which was great as I could stretch out to get some zzzzzzs. However it left late and we were stuck in Hannover having mossed our Amsterdam connection. So now two ours later were are on our way with another connection I am sure we will miss. I still do love the train to travel but next time we won’t listen to the people in the Eurorail office for connection advice.
That is all for now! Will hopefully post this soon and follow up with some pics!! Hope everyone is well!!
