Oktoberfest 2009

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I decided last week at this time to travel to Munich for Oktoberfest with a group from Florence. I was kind of worried at first because I didn't go with the people that I've been hanging out with the most in Italy. However, it turned out to be a lot of fun. Our hostel was an hour outside of Munich and was extremely nice, compared to the one my friend stayed at this weekend. I had to room with 3 people I didn't know because I signed up so late, but they were 3 of the nicest girls, I definitely got lucky.

We left Thursday night and we had to take a bus which is about an 8 hour drive, luckily there was a bathroom on the bus and we got to watch movies basically the entire time. We arrived in Munich at about 8am on Friday and weren't able to check into the hostel until that night so we got to clean up in a McDonalds bathroom for 50 cents. Oktoberfest didn't start until Saturday so me and the group of 4 that I was with just walked around Munich and had lunch at this outside place. Munich is one of the cleanest places I have ever seen, it also had a lot of familiar stores. We spent some time in the Apple store which had 2 floors and was incredible. Everything was just a lot easier to find and it was more spread out and there was more room to walk on the streets compared to Italy. I had a bratwurst and it was the best one I've ever had. We ordered beers and it wasn't what I expected, I was expecting dark beer but they only had one kind at the place that we went to, I think it was just a general beer because the same kind was served at actual Oktobefest. We made friends with a lot of people because we didn't know what else to do but stay at this outside place at the table. Luckily we ran into a couple of guys that have been coming to Oktoberfest the past 3 years and they informed us of what to expect and that we should have reserved a table. We didn't know we were supposed to do that so this guy was nice enough to try to get us tickets.

Saturday, we got up early and went to Oktoberfest. We really didn't know what to do because we didn't know if we had tickets or anything. We walked around outside for quite a while and shopped. They have little souvenir shops and a lot of places to get food and whatnot. Then we decided to try to find a table and we found a couple other people that are part of Wells and they had a table with the program they went through so we just mooched and sat with them the whole day. Everyone is singing and dancing and it was just a fun time. Everyone's very friendly and people kept singing "Hey, Hey baby. I want to know if you'll be my girl." People sing that at IU too and the people I was with said they sing that at their school events too, so it just must be a worldwide thing. We had some lunch and just walked around after that. We found this hill that everyone just falls asleep on and it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. After that I got lost in the crowd and got really worried because I didn't notice anyone I knew. Thankfully these 3 girls from the main group I was with saw me and realized I was alone and so I just hung out with them, but I finally found the people I was with originally. After that I was fine and we just went back to the hostel and went to bed.

Sunday, we got up a little later around 10am to go to Oktoberfest once again. We got to sit at a table because it was before people with reservations showed up so we got to eat some lunch and have one last beer before we had to head back to Florence. We had to leave at 4pm so we didn't really get to do much, we just sat on the hill again and watched people get arrested and act like idiots. When we left and actually were leaving Munich, we found out the bathroom on the bus didn't work so that wasn't any good and we side swiped a car so we were delayed a couple hours. We got to watch movies for the straight 8 hours though so that made it seem shorter. Otherwise, I loved Munich and want to go back to Oktoberfest next year and do it right: stay in actual Munich and reserve a table. I am stopping there again this Sunday after our Prague trip but only for a few hours. I also want to travel all over Germany because the landscape we saw on the drive back was incredible, it looked like something straight out of The Sound of Music. All around, loved everything about Munich, everyone was incredibly nice and not in a creepy way.

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