Oktoberfest!

About a week after getting back to Vienna, I signed up for a trip organised by my University to Oktoberfest. I had missed out on a lot of the introductory activities and thought that this would be a good way to get to know some of the new students. The trip was only 1 day long so not much time for sightseeing but luckily I had already been to München before with Justin. The trip consisted of catching a night train there and spending the morning doing a bit of sightseeing, then off to Oktoberfest for 11 hours before catching another night train back to Vienna.

As usual it was a "Party Train" so not much opportunity for sleep. We were a group of about 150 students and the University had hired 3 carriages for us so luckily we weren't in with regular passengers. I managed to meet quite a few cool people as I walked up and down the train and then around 4am I found a quiet cabin and got 2 hours sleep. Once we had arrived Clara and I got a coffee at Maccas and ended up hanging out there for 2 hours because it was really overcast outside. Then we did a little bit of sightseeing before finding ourselves at the Oktoberfest at the indecently early hour of 11am...

I had always pictured Oktoberfest with big marquee style tents in the middle of a big grass field but the reality is quite different. It is just like the Royal Show back home but add big buildings filled with long tables where copious amount of beer are drunk. I walked around the rides and stalls for a few hours because I wanted to put off drinking until at least after noon... :P During my wanderings I visited a few other different Beer Tents as well to try and get a bit of a feeling for what they are all like. We had tables reserved in the Hofbräu Tent and it is supposed to be the most touristy so I wanted to try and get a feeling for the more typical Beer Tents. They were all pretty much the same though and sadly I don't think you can find an authentic Beer Tent at Oktoberfest anymore...

Still feeling very boganish I started drinking at 2pm and had a lot of fun over the next 8 hours or so. It mostly involved singing really bad songs, meeting lots of new people and of course dancing on tables. Beer was quite expensive and I hadn't brought much money so no I'm sorry I wasn't that drunk, but I had a great time nonetheless. I met a lot of the other students as well as a big Aussie crew I found firmly installed in the very middle of the tent. Obviously Australia is extremely well represented at Oktoberfest and you don't have to go far to hear the familiar sound of "Aussie Aussie Aussie, OI OI OI!!!". :P

Around 10pm the University people somehow managed to round everyone up and we made our way back to the train station. On the train back most people slept but for some stupid reason I found myself playing cards with a few guys the whole way back. I arrived back in Vienna at 6am extremely tired and in desperate need of a bed. Sashi had been staying in my room while I was away and was supposed to have left my key with a friend. However when I woke this friend up she told me the bad news that she had never seen Sashi... (Cheers Sashi... :P ) Luckily her roommate was just leaving on a trip to Prague so I stole her bed and managed to sleep for 2 hours before I was very kindly kicked out. I found a cleaning lady soon after and luckily she was able to let me in so I finally collapsed into my bed.

My sleep was short lived however when 2 hours later my phone rang and a friend I had met in Napoli had arrived in Vienna and needed to be picked up...

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