Another Round of the Oktoberfest

All,

Well I know it has been a while since I updated the weblog and that has been for a couple reasons; first, the computers at the hostel in Munich were not able to have my camera attached to them, and secondly, most days were jam-packed with activity. The only time we had to knock out some blogging was late at night, and of course all the internet cafes were closed at that point.

Well ... we had a great time at Oktoberfest, and I really cannot recommend it enough, you have to go once in your life right? I will count myself lucky that I made it twice while I was relatively young and able to withstand the craziness, and I am sure I will make it again one day, but I am thinking I will be taking a couple years off.

So, basically we got ready on Wednesday early, and arrived to Oktoberfest around noon. By that time, the tents were already packed with people and starting to really be a good time as the bands starting to play. We bounced from the HofBrau tent after about 30 minutes and hung out at more local favorites like the Hacker-Pschorr and the Schottenhamel tent the rest of the day. We had a blast. The next day we pretty much did the same thing, except that we waited til a little later to try to get into the tents, and as a result had to wait outside in the rain to get in at one point. Finally, I convinced a local who was leaving to let us have their tickets, and we were back in. The latter of the two was the tent that we ended up spending the most time at, like i said before it was backed to gills, but with more of a local flair than what Hofbrau or Lowenbrau might have offered. But, we did make cameos at nearly half a dozen of the overall tents.

We were supposed to leave Oktoberfest on Friday, but we decided to stay an extra night, and we spent the day traveling south to a smaller tourist town and doing a little hiking and then coming back to Munich, hitting the Hofbrau Haus for a bit, which was just full of Americans and nothing else it seemed, and then went back to Oktoberfest one more time to just mingle with no real intention of getting in the tents.

But, overall, we had a great time, stayed safe and enjoyed all the great food at Oktoberfest like the half roasted chickens, bratwurst, and of course my favorite from last year: the grilled steak sandwich with onions.

Other note worthy things about Oktoberfest 2008:

--The song that we seemed to hear the most played by bands and enthusiastically hummed by it seemed everyone who attended was "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.

-- somehow, both of us managed to keep our voices and never get lost through two days of shouting

-- no incidents of violence whatsover, just people having a great time

-- we met lots of cool people along the way including a couple from the states who were sporting Obama pins, and a couple from Chile who struck up a conversation with Chris

-- We could not help but think how fun it would be to get a group of friends there at some point in the future, so to all you guys reading this, we will be planning it in the next few years

We spent saturday in transit to the Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald, Switzerland, and from here we will be hiking all day on Sunday, then catching an overnight train to Prague arriving Monday, and then coming home on Wednesday via Frankfurt.

Cheers

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