Konsta and his friend guided us to the Wies’n, where Oktoberfest takes over for 2-3 weeks during September and October to put on this huge fest. It started 199 years ago for a Bavarian wedding and has turned into a huge fest that people from all over come to Munich to join in on the festivities. When Amanda and I walked in to the wies’n, it almost felt like Del Mar fair/ a state fair with lots of rides, food, and people.
It was amazing!! Not the picture I had created in my head of Oktoberfest. Konsta and his friend took us to a tent- a huge wooden building that doesn’t resemble what I imagine a tent looking like- and managed to get us all inside. There were no open seats since it was 7 or 8 at night, so we stood along the side and ordered our first beers. The bier steins are 1 liter in size and weigh a ton! You need strong hands to carry around one stein, let alone 9! The waiters/waitresses would carry tons of full steins to people without dropping any…and they had to make their way through the obstacle of people (many drunk ones) taking over all the free space in the tent. Unbelievable!! In fact, one of the waiters from this weekend showed me how to carry the steins, and it was hard for me to carry 5 empty ones!
Anyways, we stayed inside for a bit, enjoying the music and people watching and catching up, then went to the biergarten outside and had some more beer. We ended our night at another biergarten, where all of us were feeling the effect of those liters of beer. It was quite a start to our weekend at Oktoberfest! We had to go back to the station and grab all our luggage, then took the train and walked back to Konsta’s place. It was SO nice to stay with him and the others! He set up his couch (as big as a king size bed) and a mattress on the floor for all of us to sleep on. Such good hospitality : )
The next day was Friday, and we slept in! We bought a bunch of food at the store, and ate some breakfast (at lunchtime) before going back to Oktoberfest. Today, Amanda and I took it easy. We stayed at the same tent all day, sitting in the biergarten with Konsta’s brother (Kaarlo) and some of his friends. Konsta had some friends that met up with us as well. Amanda and I got tired of just sitting there, so we took breaks and ventured around the rest of the grounds- checking out the rides and booths. The best part of walking around was seeing all the people. Many of them were dressed up in dirndls (a dress the women wear) and lederhosen (the outfit men wear). Some people were sleeping while others were walking in a drunken stupor. But Oktoberfest isn’t just about the beer. There were lots of families, with little kids wearing dirndls and lederhosen too! When we got back, Valeria had joined us! She is Bavarian and from Munich, so Oktoberfest means more to her than it does to all the tourists that are there. Towards the end of the night, Amanda met a couple of German guys sitting behind us and learned how to play a dice game…which she lost and had to switch shoes with one of them. Duncan and I were hungry, so we went out and searched for some good food. Our choice was a ½ meter sausage!
That’s basically all we ate this weekend- bratwurst and pretzels. We washed it down with beer. Mmmmm. Perfect combination! That night when we got back to Konstas, Christoph and his friend (Cathy) were already there, waiting for us!
On Saturday, we wanted to get there in time too sit inside a tent, so Konsta had taxis pick us up at 8:30 am, thinking it would be early enough. It wasn’t! We got inside a tent, but there were no open seats. We finally decided to go outside in the biergarten so we could all sit together.
It was another fun day filled with beer, food, friends, and lots of singing too! Our friends Julian and Ville from camp also met up with us! After 3 steins, I was ready for a nap. Around 7ish, Amanda and I headed home. We took the train to the main station, only because we were craving Starbucks : ) It tasted soo good - a little taste of home! Then we took the train to Starnburg (where Konsta lives) and sort of got lost since we haven’t gone home alone yet, and it was dark. When we called Konsta to tell him we were lost, he said we were only 100 meters away from his house!! Whoops : ) Everyone else made home later that night, and we were all exhausted so waking up early again did not happen.
We made it to Oktoberfest on Sunday by the early afternoon, and sat outside again. Meghan, Logan, and Amy planned on meeting up with us later, so it was a smaller group today. We were hungry, so we devoured some chicken, and had lots of big pretzels!
In the afternoon, we moved inside the tent and sat with some of Konsta’s friends. We were right by the orchestra and got to see the atmosphere of being inside a tent- which is really fun! We sang lots of songs and stood on the benches with the rest of the crowd. Amanda, Duncan, Ville, and I went home around 7- it was a long and tiring weekend! We said goodbye to Logan since he was leaving that night, but never got a chance to say bye to Meghan.
The next day, Christoph, Ville, and Julian left too. That left only Konsta, his brother Kaarlo, Amanda, Duncan, Amy, and I. We spent Monday doing absolutely nothing. We bought some more food at the grocery store, and lounged around their place watching movies and getting hooked on the TV series Weeds. Tuesday morning is when Amy left, then during the day Konsta, Amanda, Duncan, and I went to Munich, but this time to see the city rather than Oktoberfest! First, we sent home a package that weighed 50 pounds of stuff we didn’t need to be lugging around on our travels. It felt soooooo good to get rid of that much stuff!
Munich is a beautiful place- we walked around downtown then through the English gardens. We stopped a watched some guys surf in the river…strange!!
Konsta took us to an Italian restaurant with the biggest pizzas and calzones- the pizza doesn’t even fit on the plate!! Then we went home and relaxed some more. After staying for almost a week, Amanda, Duncan, and I left the comfort of Munich and moved on to Berlin. Thanks to Konsta and Kaarlo for letting us crash at your place, it was wonderful!!
Tschüß!
A&A
check out all our sweet pics and videos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/amandaandally/OktoberfestInMunich#
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