I am in pain. my legs hurt, i have mysterious bruises, and i am lacking quite a bit of skin on both feet. why? because we did oktoberfest right. it was messy, it was long, and at times, painful, but it was also AMAZING
i find it highly disconcerting that i did not actually need my passport or any other form of id to leave or enter both barcelona and munich, they didnt even stamp my passport! in fact, the only time my passport was looked at was in zurich when i had a layover coming home on sunday.
anywho, when i made it to munich (without passing through either legitimate security nor any form of customs) i found sara in the airport and quickly realized that we spoke no german. however, despite stereotypes, most people were really friendly and someone showed us how to get our ticket and get on the train to where we met liz (and her new german phone number). after a joyful reuniting, liz took us back to the apartment we rented for the weekend which was adorable, conveniently located, and had beer waiting for us.
after we caught up for a little we headed to Oktoberfest where we walked around one tent (but didnt sit cause it was too crowded) ate GIANT bratwursts, walked around, and made a game plan for the next mornings attack. all the walking made us want more beer so we left the grounds to go to some little outdoor beer garden situations that were around and ordered our first steins. they were HUGE. i needed 2 hands to hold it and it was larger than my head. liz chose where we sat and obviously picked seats next to the most obviously shitfaced people there. they spoke very little english and we assumed that they were german until a passer-by informed us that they were not in fact speaking german. i was FURIOUS. i guess they were finnish but we will never really know for sure… we finished our steins and moved on.
on our way from the bathrooms we happened upon a giant table of creepy germans in matching outfits. they tried to separate liz from me and sara and after a couple pictures and some failed attempts at trying to explain the concept of study abroad (which europeans apparently cannot grasp) we moved on once again. this was also when i had to explain to liz that in europe, making eye contact means that you are interested and is an open invitation to get hit on (i think she was relieved to leave the continent)
our final stop before we headed home was another beer garden situation where liz ordered another stein, sara ordered gross sparkling water, and we all shared a delicious pretzel (or brez’n if i can use one of the 6 german words i learned this weekend). while enjoying said brez’n, 3 old creepy germans approached us, sat down and proceded to hit on us. one was almost engaged, one was married, and one was married with a 5 month old baby. we left as soon as our brez’n was gone and went to bed, setting our alarms for the crack of dawn the next morning.
molly