Picking up the pieces

---

Instead of hitting the tents again, today I made the solemn trip to the lost and found office to see if by some small chance my backpack ended up there. I arrived mid-morning and waded my way through huge crowds. These were much larger than yesterday. Granted it is Saturday but there was another reason that I learned from Roger yesterday - the middle weekend is when all the Italians go to the festival.

There were Italians everywhere. Some were well on their way, probably from drinking on the train ride up, and others were busy romancing the frauleins. If I wasn’t still ticked about the backpack, I’d probably have gotten more of a laugh out of it.

I showed up at the lost and found and was told to come back at noon. After walking around for an hour, and picking up a beer stein for Josh (and one for me), I got back at noon and was told that it would be 4:00 until they would have all of yesterday’s carnage assessed.

The crowds continued to grow. Getting out of there was a nightmare. The tents were packed and it appeared as if there were huge lines just waiting to get in. I finally walked behind some of the tents where there is a grass hill where all those who had too much to drink go to sleep it off. In the early afternoon, it was already heavily occupied.

I made it back to the hotel and started to get some of my things together. I then had a great idea - it’s been almost two months since I had a haircut and I was tired of the mop on my head. Why not get that out of the way.

There were a number of barbers near my hotel so I showed up at one of them knowing little more than the word for haircut. There was a Yugoslavian woman client there who spoke fluent English so she helped me with the Yugoslavian barber (his German apparently isn’t good, either). I feel like a new man.

After the haircut, I took the subway back to the Oktoberfest lost and found office. After wading through the crowds again, which had somehow grown even larger, I reached the office. They let me go downstairs and have a look but to no avail. As I suspected, it was gone for good.

On my way back, I picked up a new backpack and umbrella from a local department store.

Back at the hotel, I did my laundry, made some calls and eventually hit the sack.

Tomorrow I leave Munich for Salzburg. But first I am touring the Dachau concentration camp in the morning.

---

Photos

Shocker ride
When I saw this, I had to get Josh's beer stein from a stand nearby.