One Wild Night!

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This morning I woke up feeling all refreshed after my first real good night sleep of the trip so far. We made our way back over to Munich's city center this morning for a little more sightseeing and shopping. It was still sporadically raining when we arrived in the city. It was not even 10 o'clock and the area around the Marienplatz was already buzzing with activity. Today was the first day of Oktoberfest and we watched part of the parade march through the square. There were bands marching and wagons all decorated while being pulled by horses. People in the wagons were dressed in traditional German attire while drinking beer from their steins, and it was only 10am. One of the wagons was even playing La Bamba, how typically German. After we bored of this, we decided to do some walking around. Suzanne and Clay decided to go to Burger King then do some wandering by themselves. Patrice, Mar, Amy, and myself decided to do some serious souvenir shopping. We first checked out the Hofbrahaus since we weren't able to check it out the night before. When we went in, I was surprised to see that the place was still packed. We easily found a table and debated on whether or not to enjoy a beer or order some schnitzel. No one really felt like it, so we just sat there for a few minutes and enjoyed the atmosphere and listened to the oom-pah pah band play. We then visited the gift shop where I bought a cap and a sweatshirt. After the Hofbrahaus, we checked out many of the tourist shops in the area. It seemed like we went through all of them looking for t-shirts, key chains and other typical tourist trinket crap. We stopped for a little snack at a small hole in the wall bakery. We all had some type of apple streudel and hot chocolate while standing. No one seems to have tables and chairs for their patrons to sit. There wasn't much else to do here so we spent the rest of the time just wandering. Eventually, we made it back on the bus on our way to Austria.

While driving to Austria, I had heard that one of our tour mates, Patrick was so drunk the night before at Oktoberfest that he landed himself in the hospital with a diaper on. It sounds pretty crazy and I'm not sure if I believe this story but seeing him drink, it doesn't sound that impossible. Our first stop in Austria was the city of Innsbruck, the site of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. We had about 2 hours to just wander the downtown area and grab a bite to eat. It was still raining when we arrived in Innsbruck and we all had to bust out our umbrellas. The narrow cobblestones streets were really cool and despite the rain, there were plenty of other tourists out today. We arrived at the Golden Roof and had a look, took a few photos, and continued into the city. There are so many narrow streets and alleyways here, that is very easy to get lost. We arrived in the main part of town where we were all left to explore for a while. Most of the group walked over to the Swarovski Crystal Factory. For me, there was nothing special here but there was a really cool crystal globe in the front window. I just went inside to use the bathroom and went off to explore by myself as crystals are just not my thing. I walked back up the main street and found the city tower. A little sense of adventure came over me just then and I decided to climb the 200+ stairs to the top of the tower. After about 5 minutes and being out of breath, I finally reached the top. It was still raining and the sky was very cloudy but the top still afforded really nice views of the city of Innsbruck. Afterwards, I decided to look for something to eat and had a craving for some good old American junk food. I walked over to the Mcdonalds that I saw earlier and ordered some Chicken Nuggets and a coke. I found Kevin, Jason, and Andrea who apparently had the same idea as me. We all sat together and then all 4 of us ventured over to the Shnapps store to try some free Shnaaps samples. When we arrived, Amy, Mar, Patrice, Suzanne, Clay, Chris, and Wendy were already there. We all took turns trying all the different flavors. I had about 5 shots and was already starting to feel slightly tipsy. After the free Shnaaps, I walked with Kevin and Rob to find Kevin at hat then it was back on the bus over to our home for the next 2 days.

Our accomodations for the next 2 nights was at the Gastof Itterwirt in the small town of Itter. This was a really cozy family owned guesthouse with a huge dinner hall and a resident dog roaming the grounds. It was a total Alpine feel here straight out of the Sound of Music. After dinner we were all to gather in the bar area to party hard as we were the last "London to Athens" tour group to stay at this hotel. We were all told to wear something white. Everyone slowly started to gather in the bar and everyone was still pretty mellow. A lot of us kept going to the computer to add new songs to the playlist. As people had more and more drinks, everyone started to get much more rowdier. Everyone from the trip had made it down to the bar tonight, except for poor Cassandra who was still sick with some stomach ailment. Many people kept getting "The Boot" which was a huge beer glass in the shape of a boot. This probably contained 3 bottles of beer. Everyone kept ordering beers, "Lady's Specials", shots, and these tubes of Vodka and Red-Bull. The music got much louder and most of us started dancing. We all danced to stupid songs like the Macarena, Love Shack, Locomotion, and other cheesy 80's rock hits. By around 10pm, most everyone was pretty tipsy or drunk. Even quiet Mar was pretty drunk as he was being loud and was yelling at people at the computer. At one point in the night, Suzanne came yelling in saying that Patrice was passed out in the hallway. Me, Mar, Amy, Suzanne, and Sandra all went running into the hallway to see for ourselves and sure enough, there was Patrice....face down in the hallway at the base of the stairs. Apparently she had tried to go back to the room and just collapsed...Instead of getting back up she just decided to just stay down there for a while. Instead of trying to help her up, we all just got on top of her, took photos and ran back to the dance floor to continue our drinking and dancing. Tonight was South African Michael's birthday. Matt managed to get him 5 different shots and after we all sang Happy Birthday to him, he downed them all. Tonight was also the night that crazy Sarah came out out of her shell. For the first week of the trip, she had pretty much kept a low profile. I don't even remember her saying much or doing much hanging out prior to tonight. The main event of the evening started in the bar where apparently she agreed to take off her top if the bartender, Wolfgang took off his shirt. Off came his shirt and seconds later off came hers. This started a chain reaction as Erin then took off her top. Then Clay took off all his clothes!!! Everyone had by now gathered around the bar and were laughing hysterically and taking photos. Patrice even took off her top for awhile, although she did manage to keep her bra on. Clay had no inhibitions as he just stood there in all his glory while everyone snapped away. All of the girls were totally drooling over Wolfgang. He was some model who had his own calender and had a very nice body. After all the excitement had died down a bit, all the guys were forced to take off their shirts for the remainder of the evening. The rest of the evening after all this nakedness was just more of the same dancing and drinking. I hung out at the bar with Amanda for the rest of the night. We just chatted away and got to know one another. It turns out we had a lot in common. I'm sure some of the others in the group thought we were going to hook up as we were all chatty by ourselves in the corner of the bar. There were some other hookups tonight and some rumors but again, those involved shall remain nameless. Suzanne later told me that her bar bill was so outrageous that Clay managed to cut the bill in half if Suzanne agreed to take off her top. Apparently she did just to save big bucks on her bill. Matt had said later on that this night was one of the craziest nights he has ever had during his career as a tour manager. It's hard to believe that anything could top tonight's events.

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