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Published: October 10th 2007
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...sum germudlicht kite!!
(A toast, a toast, to comfort!! - a German drinking song, sung regularly at Oktoberfest)
Hello everybody!
Phew, it was a hard job taking in Oktoberfest, but someone had to do it!!
We arrived in Munich early on the 2nd, but we had a wee hitch with our hotel... they had overbooked the hotel we were due to stay in and had to move us to a sister hotel - the good news is the new hotel was even closer to Oktoberfest, the drawback was we couldn't check into the hotel until after 11 am. Eventually we checked in refreshed ourselves and headed down the hill to the Oktoberfest venue.
I had heard Oktoberfest was many beer tents close together, full of foreigners drinking... but I was completely unprepared for the sheer size of the place. They may call them beer 'tents' but they are truly massive, and not really tents at all! Also there are so many of them, especially considering the criteria for having a tent at Oktoberfest is having a brewery in Munich for at least 150 years!!
We walked through several tents full of revellers looking for a seat
(most places won@t serve you unless you@re seated) before eventually (about an hour and a half later!) settling for the Hoffbrau Haus. The Hoffbrau House is only place that will serve you standing up, because it has rows of bar leaners. The advantage of that is people come and go as they please so you meet heaps of different people, whereas seated we would have only met the people close to us. We had considered booking a table before we got to Oktoberfest, but apparently you need 10 people to book a table and costs 14 euro per person...
After so long anticipating that first Oktoberfest beer, it went down just superbly... followed closely by half of the second litre of beer...
We had envisaged moving on from the Hoffbrau Haus after our first couple of beers, but we were having such a great time we stayed there a bit longer than planned. We decided to move on after a few drinks only to find a massive queue to get into the hall... knowing that it was unlikely we would get a place anywhere else we stayed and had a few more beers (and some food) in the
Hoffbrau Haus with our new friends (who all spoke German with Andrae as our sole translator).
About 11pm the place closes up so they turfed us out, and we went home for some well earned rest about 7 mugs of beer after we started.
We all woke up a little gingerly the next morning, but no great harm was done. After breakfast at the hotel, and checking out, we were ready to head back to the festival for Round 2!
We only had a couple of beers the next day coupled with a hearty meal of marinated beef and roasted pork knuckle. We had no worries getting a seat because we were still quite early, and most tables aren@t reserved until after 4pm. We also experienced one of the roller coasters (called the Eurostar) and checked out some of the other food stalls (like the roasted nut stall!).
All in all, Matt, Andrae and I thoroughly enjoyed our Oktoberfest experience, but eventually we had to leave...
With heavy hearts we all travelled to the train station where Andrae and I farewelled Matt and jumped on a train to Salzburg in Austria.
We arrived in
Salzburg and checked into our backpackers, where we met a whole bunch more Kiwi backpackers!! We had a few drinks with them (including a free drink if I stood on the bar and drank it), then turned in early (like 3am) for our flight in the morning. The next day feeling much the worse for a couple of poor nights sleep Andrae and I boarded our plane to London...
The flight was uneventful and we arrived in London a couple of hours later... It was actually a relief to be back in a country who (mostly) speak 'English' and where I could understand the signs. Andrae and I caught a express train into the centre of London where we were supposed to meet Jo... Unfortunately we got a bit carried away and arrived at her place while she was still looking for us in the city (a process not helped by a couple of dead cell batteries on our side of the equation).
Anyway, I'm all settled in now, and I promise to update you all with the rest of my adventures soon.
Til next time, stay safe
Nick
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