Oktoberfest

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This is the story of three mid-20s Americans in Munich for Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is probably the most renowned party in the world. The only others even in the same ballpark are Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Everyone who's ever tasted a beer knows what Oktoberfest is. The name is synonymous with drinking beer and having fun. All around the world, cities and bars host miniature Oktoberfest parties for those not fortunate enough to make it to Munich. But it's not the same. There is only one Oktoberfest and it's in Munich, Germany. It lasts exactly two weeks from late September to early October (it used to be solely in October but they moved it up a couple weeks because people complained it was too cold). It takes place at a large fairground near downtown Munich. It is loud. It is expensive. It is out of control. But most of all: it is frikin' amazing.

In the spring of 2011 my buddy Richie casually mentioned that he wanted to go to Oktoberfest. He had a friend in the military stationed in Germany and thought Oktoberfest would be a good excuse to go see him. You don't have to ask me twice. I was in from the moment he said "Oktob-" I didn't need any convincing. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said about our other friends from college. We managed to recruit Mason to join after giving him a guilt trip. He wanted to go but was having some relationship issues and felt he couldn't leave. He made the right choice.

Richie and I decide to spend a few days in Switzerland before heading to Munich (see "Switzerland: Home of the Summer Blizzard) and fly together to Zurich from DC. After a short journey around Switzerland we fly Swiss Air to Munich. Swiss Air is nice because they give you chocolate. Nothing like some chocolate before ingesting liter after liter of beer. Mason has already been to Switzerland so he decides to skip that part of the trip and venture into Austria before meeting us in Munich. He has a rental car and the plan is for him to pick us up at the Munich airport, which is quite far out of town. There's a McDonald's right outside the terminal we have picked for our meeting point.

Richie and I arrive on time and find the McDonald's. Of course Mason's not there. I know for a fact that Mason's sketchy Virgin Mobile cell phone does not work overseas so I really have no way of contacting him. Richie's Verizon doesn't pick up a signal either. My AT&T picks up the local carrier with full reception. Good for use in emergencies, but not going to do a whole lot when then two people I'm with don't have service. So we have no way of contacting Mason. After about a half hour of waiting at the McDonald's we get a little worried. Did he forget? I try to pick up some wireless signal to check my email, see if he sent anything but can't find one. Finally I remember there was a Starbucks inside the terminal. Every Starbucks has free wifi (except in New Zealand). I head back inside and get online. No emails. I send him one that basically says "dude where the hell are you?" and wait around for a few minutes with no response. Nearly an hour has passed and I decide to go search around the area to see if he's waiting somewhere else. Richie stays put in case he shows.

I walk all around the area but Mason is nowhere to be found. Dejected, I head back to the McDonalds. And what do you know there he is waiting with Richie. Took a bit longer than he thought it was going to take to get to Munich from Interlaken. An hour later we're finally leaving the airport. Not a good start to Oktoberfest. I need a beer.

Hotels in Munich during the two weeks of Oktoberfest cost more money than you can shake a stick at. We were able to find a hotel in Ottobrun, about 8 miles outside of downtown, for about $200/night. That's a deal during Oktoberfest. Munich has a pretty extensive train and subway system. We made sure to find a hotel within walking distance of a train station. The Ottobrun station is about a mile walk from the hotel, very doable. We check in and head up the room, which is tiny, as is typical for European hotel rooms. We've booked a 2 person room at a two person rate and have an air mattress. It seemed more logical than paying the extra $50 a night for a three person room. We get a quick meal near the hotel, which ironically enough has an Indian Restaurant to counter it's traditional Bavarian theme, and head off to the train station.

Oktoberfest is daytime thing, but we want to go check out the fairgrounds and see what it's all about before starting early tomorrow. The trip into town takes about an hour when you add up the walk plus the train with switching trains in the city center. But people in Germany drink on the train (and everywhere else for that matter) so it's not too bad. We have a couple beers for the journey we bought from the convenience store near the train station. We change to an underground train at the main central station and when we emerge from underground at the Theresienwiese Station we are greeted by the sights and sounds of the biggest adult carnival in the world. We have made it to Oktoberfest!

It's around 8:00. It's dark and the party is dying down. As I said, Oktoberfest is a daytime thing. But we make it to the Paulaner tent and get seated outside at a big empty table. Inside is still decently busy, but nothing crazy. If you don't get to a tent by like 1 or 2 in the afternoon you're not going to get a seat at any of the tables inside. The tents are huge. The biggest ones can hold up to 8000 people. There probably aren't quite that many inside the Paulaner tent right now, but we still have to sit outside. Yes, trust me, it's not crowded right now.

After a few minutes sitting down our server comes up to us. And by this I mean she asks us how many beers we want. One beer equals one liter of beer, the big mug you see all over the place in Germany. One liter of beer is about 34 ounces, so almost 3 full beers. And this isn't Bud Light. They don't give you a choice of beers; you just get whatever they are serving, which is typically a traditional German lager. But it's strong beer. All beers served at Oktoberfest must be 6% ABV or greater (and must be brewed in Munich). This means that it will mess you up.

We say "three", one for each of us, and she is off. A few minutes later she returns carrying our mugs, called "masts" here, with one hand. She sets them on the table and says 27 Euros. Each beer at each tent ranges from 8-9 Euros, which at the time is about $13 USD. We each give a 10 Euro bill and she keeps 1 Euro as tip. I'll point out here that the American vision of a gorgeous large breasted German woman carrying 10 beers on each hand does not exist at Oktoberfest. The servers can in fact carry up to 10 beers on each hand, but St. Pauli's girl is not here. The servers are a mix between men and women (though much more women) and are not quite as attractive as we've been lead to believe. There are some pretty ones, but for the most part they are just average German folks, not supermodels. I blame Beerfest for diluting our vision of German beer servers!

With our first Oktoberfest beer in hand we raise our glasses to cheers then take that first sip of fresh German beer we've been waiting our whole lives for. Once it hits your lips it's so good! In reality, the breweries are not serving their best beers at the tents, just their basic beers. But it is much better than the cheap beer we're used to drinking in the US (the craft beer scene still hasn't really exploded yet at this time). We get Paulaner in the US. But this is fresh. I don't even want to think about how many kegs of beer they must go through each day at this event...

We head over to the Hofbrau beer garden for another beer and then go walk around the fairgrounds as the night winds to an end. Last call each night during Oktoberfest is at 10:30. But we just got here and we still want to drink. So we walk towards downtown and try to find some bars to hit up. People are wandering around everywhere, but the bars aren't too crowded. We buy some cheap German beer called Lagerbier Hell from a guy selling them from a cart for 2 Euros on the street and continue our wandering. Drinking in the street is allowed in Munich, and encouraged. Just ask the guy selling beer from the cart. There are no hot dogs in there.

We settle down at a small bar and try chatting with some of the locals but there's not a lot of people around. I wonder where all the people go after Oktoberfest. Where's the after party? There's gotta be something going on, right? After a few beers at the bar it's around midnight and we decide we should go home so we can get up early and get to the fairgrounds around 11:00 tomorrow to get a good start on the day. We hop on the train and we're back in the room around 1. Tomorrow is going to be a big day.

We're up in time for breakfast and confuse the breakfast girl by saying we are all in the same room. There are only supposed to be two people in each room so you only get two breakfasts per room. We hope we won't get charged for an extra person in the room (we end up just getting charged an extra 7 Euros per day for the third person's breakfast). Breakfast is good, but we can't hang around here too long. We've got some drinking to do!

We arrive at the Hofbrau tent just after 11:00. There is a Hofbrauhaus in Las Vegas that I used to love going to so I figure we might as well go to their Oktoberfest tent for our first day. Our first beers arrive at 11:11. I make a wish but it's already come true: I'm at Oktoberfest! And thus begins one of the craziest (slash) drunkest days of my life.

We're on our second liter of beer by noon and things are going well. We've been seated with some older folks from Switzerland who speak good English. Mason has decided he will take a picture of me with each beer as I get it, to see the downward spiral of my cognitive abilities. I consider it a good idea (he quits after the 5th liter, mainly due to the decline in his own cognitive abilities). We each take turns walking around the fairgrounds while the others hold down the fort at the tent. I buy a Hofbrauhaus Munchen mast and somehow manage to hold on to it the rest of the day. Richie buys an Oktoberfest hoodie and wears it around the rest of the day. Mason doesn't buy anything except a pretzel.

A few liters later we've become best friends with the Swiss people at our table. Who knows what we're talking about, but one of the guys pulls out some snuff and starts snorting it (are there any other ways to get your tobacco fix? You can smoke it, chew it, dip it, and apparently snort it). He offers it to us and Richie and Mason are like why not - it's Oktoberfest. I'm not excited by the idea but after 5 liters of beer they peer pressure me enough to give in. It's disgusting and I hope to never to it again. But I tried it. Damn Swiss!

It's around 3:00 in the afternoon when the server comes by to tell us that we have to leave the tables. Apparently some people have made reservations (which you can do if you have a group of 8 or more) and the whole area is booked. She tells us we can go over to the standing tables, an area with high tables and no benches. This is where the people without reservations hang out at the Hofbrau tent. So that's where we go.

By this point standing is probably a good thing. I've lost count of the number of liters of beer I've had. I'm on at least number 6, and Mason has stopped photographing me with each beer. We are standing at a table with some Aussies and a few other Americans. Coherent conversations by this point are nonexistent. I'm telling some Aussies about my time in Australia the previous year when I black out.

I wish I could share more about the next few hours. But the fact is that I don't know what's happening. When I come to we are in an outdoor beer garden at another tent. There is a liter of beer in front of me. How did that get there? Mason is slipping in and out of consciousness and Richie is resting his head in his hands on the table. It's not even dark yet. What time is it?

As the sun sets over Munich it's a consensus between the three of us that it's time to go back to the hotel. The answer to my "where do people go after the Oktoberfest tents close" question has become painstakingly clear to me: they go home. All I can think about is sleep. There is no Oktoberfest after-party. If you're in good enough shape to keep drinking after a full day at Oktoberfest you are either a serious alcoholic or you didn't do it right. We manage to stumble downtown to the train station, skipping the subway, and get on our train back to Ottobrun. When we depart the train we're too desperate for sleep to try to walk the mile back to the hotel. So we hail a taxi that costs us about 15 Euros, but it's a small price to pay after spending an unknown amount drinking and eating in the tents.

Back at the hotel, our first day at Oktoberfest is in the books. 4 more days of this, huh? This is going to be intense. I chug as much water as I can fit in my stomach and pass out. It's been one hell of a day, full of things I'll never remember and times I'll never forget. Day 2 awaits.

Wednesday morning. Scratch that. Wednesday afternoon. How long have I been sleeping? It's past noon. I was asleep before 11:00 last night. Thirteen hours of sleep. That's awesome! So how come I don't feel so awesome? Oh yeah. We've missed breakfast but that's okay. We lay about in the hotel discussing what we remember and don't remember from the previous day. The late afternoon time is blurry for all of us. Liters of strong German beer will do that to you. By the time we leave the hotel it's past 1:00 in the afternoon. The tents will already be full of party-goers young and old by now. We better get a move on.

It's 2:00 by the time we enter the Spaten tent and the party has been going on for a while. People look at us as we walk by wondering why we look so sober. The tent is packed, but the server is able to squeeze the three of us in with a tables of locals at the back of the tent. We say hello and thank them for letting us sit with them. We introduce ourselves and order liters of beer. We have a lot of catching up to do.

As the day veers on our new German friends become more and more outgoing by the liter. Next thing we know we're toasting and chugging with the locals. They share stories about past Oktoberfests and we tell them stories of beer drinking in America. When we tell them we're here all week going to Oktoberfest they tell us we're crazy. 2, 3 days tops they say. Your body can't handle anymore. We raise a toast and consult about maybe taking a day off. It's Wednesday and we leave Sunday so we have three possible days after this. But one of Richie's friends in the military stationed in Ramstein is heading over on Friday, so if we want to take a break we better do it tomorrow. I've been interested in seeing King Ludwig's castle, the one the Disney World Castle is based on, for a while now so I propose the idea to Mason and Richie and it's decided upon. When the locals tell you to take a break from Oktoberfest you listen. Mason has a rental car so we'll drive down to the Bavarian Alps tomorrow and check out the castle. That sounds good, but for today, we still have a lot of drinking to do.

We each take turns wandering out of the tent around the fairgrounds. I come back with a green T-shirt that features a deer head with a bra hanging from one antler and a mast of beer hanging from the other. I don't know what it says but I know I love it. I put it on over my shirt and order another liter. By this time our German friends are drunk out of their minds. They've been here since 9 AM and they are barely coherent by 4 in the afternoon. The time has come for them to leave. We say our goodbyes and they stumble off. Not one minute later a new group of German's comes up and asks to share the table with us. All the tables are full by now so people watch out for people leaving like a driver in a crowded parking lot. Of course you can join us, we say. Where's your beer?

Our new friends are a bit shy at first but after a few more beers we are basically BFF. One of the girls is going to study abroad in the US. Richie takes a fancy to her. Mason and I are entertaining the other members of the group. 5:00 rolls around and we don't get kicked out of our table like the day before. This is the unreserved section we are told. Perfect! We'll have this table the rest of the day. This calls for more beers!

There are a few things that can happen at any given time at Oktoberfest that get the whole tent up and cheering. The most common is the band (there's a traditional polka band in the center of every tent) will play "Ein Prosit," the German toast song. This means that you raise your mast in the air and cheers your neighbors before taking a drink. This happens every 20-30 minutes and never gets old. The lyrics are simple so memorize them: http://www.oktoberfest-songs.com/ein-prosit-lyrics.html

The other thing you're bound to see is someone stand up on their table and attempt to chug an entire liter of beer. Now I fancy myself a pretty damn good beer chugger but there is no way in a hell I'm trying this. If you succeed you're cheered, a new hero in the tent. But if you fail you are booed and publicly embarrassed, forced to live with that shame the rest of the day. Needless to say most people fail. Though I'll note that if a girl tries she is cheered either way. I don't want the chance of being booed in front of 8000 Germans so I let other people do the chugging. One guy gets up on the table and starts chugging only to realize he's never going to finish so he calls an audible and pours the rest of the beer all over his head. His creativity is applauded by the crowd. But he still failed the challenge. We must not forget this.

By 7:00 we're still relatively coherent. We've each wandered off a few times to get some bratwurst and other random German sausages. You must eat at Oktoberfest. You can eat at your table, but if it's crowded like it usually is, you might not have any room and risk the some drunk idiot passing out face down in your mashed potatoes. Luckily there are tons of food vendors outside of the tents. They specialize in sausages and pretzels, but you can find just about anything. Our typical meal is a mixture of German sausages. And tonight is no different. The food at Oktoberfest is excellent and we're never disappointed.

Richie has been talking to Nadine, a girl from Munich, for a while now. But eventually he needs to use the restroom. This is no small task at Oktoberfest, especially by this time in the day. With tents of up to 8000 people drinking beer you can imagine the lines for the toilets. You hold it till you cant hold it anymore. But when you have to go you have to go. While Richie is off on his bathroom adventure Mason starts chatting with Nadine, you know, keeping her company while Richie is gone....

By the time Richie returns Mason and Nadine are in deep conversation. She doesn't even notice Richie come back. What a swoop! Richie is not too pleased by this. An hour later we're successfully drunk enough to leave. As we're heading out Richie punches Mason in the balls. "Cockblock" he proclaims, and I agree. Mason pleads ignorance then says "well maybe you shouldn't have gone to the bathroom." Richie will hold this to Mason's head for years to come, never to be forgiven. As consolation, Richie gets Nadine to add him on Facebook before leaving. Hey, you never know.

On our way back to the train station I somehow start talking to some girl on the street smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. She is learning English and insists on practicing on me. She's not bad. We talk for a while. I've lost Richie and Mason, who are probably already on the train by now. She asks me how old I am and I tell her I'm 27. "How old are you?" I return the question. "16," she says. Fuck me. What the hell is a 16 year old doing drinking and smoking in the street!? Oh right, this is Germany. I still don't believe her because she looks much older (probably from years of smoking) so I ask to see her ID. She pulls it out and shows it to me. 1995 it says. Yup, she's 16 alright. That means it's time for me to go home. I hand her back her ID and walk away. Now I'm wondering just how many of these Oktoberfest girls are high school kids with their makeup all done fancy and boobs pushed all up. Lesson be learned: be careful in Germany!

Thursday is our "rest" day. Though that really just means we're refraining from drinking all day. We've mapped out a day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle (http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/tourist/index.htm) , southwest of Munich near the Austrian border. It is one of the most picturesque castles in the world, build on the slopes of the Bavarian Alps for King Ludwig II from 1869 to 1880. If that castle looks familiar maybe it's because you've seen something similar before, like in Disney's Magic Kingdom: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Magic_Kingdom_Page.jpg. The Disney castle was modeled after Ludwig's castle.

The drive to the castle takes us through the rolling hills and fields of southern Bavaria. We pass small German towns and farms, the Bavarian Alps in the distance. We stop in one of the small towns for lunch and do a bit of wandering around downtown. It's a beautiful little town with cobblestone streets. We sit down at a cafe and look over the menu, which doesn't have English translations like things at Oktoberfest. This makes it difficult. I manage to translate the "panini" section and order a mystery sandwich. Our waiter speaks no English, so he is of little help to us random Americans. Mason finds something that says "spaghetti" so he figures that is a safe bet. Can't go wrong with pasta.

While Mason is in the bathroom his ice cream comes. Yes, that's right. Ice cream. Shaped like spaghetti, complete with a red syrup made to represent pasta sauce. Oh, this is glorious. Richie and I await Mason's return so we can see the look on his face when he sees his "spaghetti." We try to hold in our laughs when he sits back down but it's hard. "What are you guys laughing about?" he asks. He hasn't noticed yet. In his defense, it really does look like spaghetti, but I mean come on you can tell. He goes to grab the spoon. "WTF?" Richie and I explode in laughter. "WTF is this? Oh god dammit it's ice cream." We are amused. He eats about half the ice cream and leaves in disappointment.

Back on the road we make one last stop to hang out with some emo horses before arriving in Hohenschwangau, the small town right outside the castle where we buy our tickets. There isn't another English speaking tour for almost 2 hours and we don't feel like waiting that long so we get on a German speaking tour instead. We really don't need to hear anything, just want to see the inside. Before the tour starts we have some time to wander the grounds outside the castle. The scenery is gorgeous and there is a wooden pedestrian bridge that offers an incredible view of the castle.

Inside the castle is marvelous. We've heard that the cost of building the castle was equal to about $1 Billion Euros today. You can see why. It's right on a cliff, and this was the 1800s. The interior of the building is as fancy and posh as you'll ever see. Glass ceramics dominate the interior architecture, including tons of life size ceramic swans. Looking around, there are swans painted on all the walls as well. Now I wish we would have taken the English tour so I could find out what the deal is with all these swans. This Ludwig fella must have really liked swans....

The building is impressive, but after the tour we have to get back to Munich. We take a different route back through some nice scenery and arrive back at our hotel by dinnertime. We decide to take a break from German food and head to an Italian place a few blocks from the hotel. No one there speaks English, but this time the pasta courses are actually pasta. No ice cream this time around. We also order a few bottles of Italian wine to go along with our changing it up theme of the night.

As we get to bed, Richie's friend Greg is on his way from Ramstein. He's in the military and is stationed there. He was able to get away for the weekend and meet us for a crazy weekend at Oktoberfest, but he doesn't get in till some time after midnight.

We're up early Friday morning. This is a big Oktoberfest day and we need to get there as early as possible. We're at the fairgrounds by 10 AM. Plenty of time to spare, right? Yeah, sure. The first few tents we check out are packed to the brim, so we decide to try a not as famous tent, the Hacker-Pschorr tent. It's not quite as packed, but it still looks like every seat at a table is taken. Apparently we should have been here right when the door opened. A server says he'll find us a spot and walks us around for a while, finally asking some young Germans to scooch a bit to make room for the 4 of us at the end of a long table. Success!

We thanks the guys for letting us join them and order beers. At 10 AM on your 4th morning of Oktoberfest all beer tastes the same. I can't tell the difference between this beer and anything else at this point. I'm sure it's delicious though. Just like the previous days, after a few liters of beer are consumed everyone at the table becomes best friends. We eat sporadically throughout the day and by 2:00 in the afternoon everyone in the tent is standing on their benches singing along with the bad. Well, almost everyone. One of the guys at our table has passed out faced own on the table, beer still in his grip. Amateurs.

After nearly 7 hours in the Hacker tent we've made it to 5 in the afternoon. Once again we're kicked out of our seats to make room for people with reservations. This is okay with us, though. Our heads are spinning by this point, which clearly means it's time to try some of the rides. Like I said before, Oktoberfest is basically a big carnival with extreme amounts of beer. There are a ton of rides to try, from simple children's rides to extreme theme-park rides like roller coasters. We decide to start with the elevated swings to get a good view of the whole grounds. Plus, this won't mess us up too much after god knows how many liters of beer.

The swing gives us an aerial view of the fairgrounds and I snap a few pictures. We try a few more rides but rides cost money so we decide our money is better spend on beer. We know we'll never be able to get into a tent at this time of the day so we head to the Lowenbrau beer garden outside their tent. We find room there and join a group of people outside which includes a few other Americans. As 6:00 rolls around I'm ready to black out. I wish I could share more about Friday night, but I simply don't know what happens next.

When I wake up it's about 11 in the morning and I'm in the bed at the hotel. The 4 of us managed to make it back alive... somehow, but Mason has left in the middle of the night for a 6 Am flight to Italy, where he'll spend 2 weeks for work (yeah, lucky bastard). All my money is gone and I feel like ass. Another successful day at Oktoberfest I suppose. Today is our last day in Munich. We've already decided to take it easy today so that we can go to the Bayern Munich game versus Bayern Leverkusen tonight. We don't have tickets, but figure we can get them at the stadium. We've never been to a sporting event outside of the US so we're just hoping you can buy tickets from scalpers outside the stadium.

We reach the fairgrounds around 2 in the afternoon. The problem is none of us can even think about putting more beer down our throats. And even if we wanted to, the tents are packed by this time on a weekend. There's no room to even stand in the tents (probably some sort of fire hazard) and as we walk by we see people overflowing from the beer gardens outside of the tents. So what do we do? Guess it's time to head to the wine tent. Yes, that's right. There is one small tent at Oktoberfest that does not have beer. It just serves wine and liquor. Needless to say this tent isn't very popular, and that's exactly why we're able to get in on a Saturday in the middle of the afternoon.

There are no tables available but we find some stools at the bar (unlike the beer tents, this one has an actual bar you order from) and order some girly drinks. I want to feel like a pussy for drinking a Sex on the Beach at Oktoberfest but at this point just the thought of beer makes me want to vomit. The drink tastes good. After spending some time in the wine tent we decide to not force alcohol down our throats anymore and head off to try more rides. The view from the top of the swing ride is better sober. And we can try a few more fast-paced rides now that we're not sloshed today.

The Bayern Munich game starts at 7:00 and is on the outskirts of the city. Of course there is a train that goes right there but we still need to get there early to secure some tickets. The game is sold out so hopefully some scalpers will be around. We've loaded up on cash in preparation for getting way overpriced seats. We get off the train and it's a sea of red. The stadium holds close to 100,000 people so it's almost like being in the Big House in Ann Arbor.

Our first order of business is to secure some tickets. We head over to the ticket office just to see if there any available though we heard it was sold out and they confirm the rumors. Now it's time to look for scalpers. But this isn't like going to a sporting even in the US where people just walk around holding tickets in the air that they are trying to sell. In fact, there is no one holding tickets in the air at all. We wander around aimlessly while Richie holds 3 fingers in the air signifying that we need 3 tickets.

After what seems like an hour of wandering, mixed with some food and drink purchasing, a guy approaches us and asks if we need tickets. He says he has three to sell and offers them from 120 Euros each. We note that the list price on the tickets is 60 so we haggle him down to 90 each. With tickets in hand it's time for my first European soccer match!

We enter Allianz Arena (http://www.allianz-arena.de/de/index.php)to the sound of thousands of Bayern Munich fans chanting for the home team. It's an atmosphere not unlike you're typical college football game in the US, minus all the TV timeouts. I look around the stadium and realize that I've never seen so many white people in one place before. Germany is not a very diverse country, and that is evident here with 100,000 people in plain sight. I'm sure there are some non-Caucasians somewhere in the stands but I can't see them.

Leverkusen is in trouble from the get-go. The Bundasliga may not be as good top to bottom as the EPL, but Munich is one of the best clubs in the world, if not the absolute best (2013 Champions League champions, and 2012 runner up to EPL's Chelsea). They're pretty much the German national team with French star Franck Ribery as the icing on the cake. Basically, they're really good, and it shows. They whoop up on Leverkusen 3-0, and it's not even that close. My first European soccer match is a memorable experience and I buy a Bayern Munich hat as we leave to commemorate the event.

Back downtown we decide to spend some time walking around Munich. We've been here almost a week and still have no idea what the city is like, only the fairgrounds. Munich is a huge city, and a couple hours isn't enough to explore it properly. To add to that it's night so it's dark and everything is closed. If you want to get a feel for the city of Munich don't come during Oktoberfest. You'll never want to leave the fairgrounds.... We could go out to some bars but it's been one hell of a week already and we have to get up tomorrow and go to the airport for the flight back to DC, so we head home well before midnight.

After one final German breakfast at the hotel it's time to catch the train to the airport. We've had a hell of a time in Germany but the real world awaits us back at work tomorrow. I'm better off than Richie, though. Once he gets to DC he still has to fly to Charlotte then drive about 2 hours back to Columbia, SC where he lives. The next day at work is brutal. The Oktoberfest hangover lasts for days. But it's a price that is worth paying for the experience.

To anyone thinking about going to Munich for Oktoberfest: just go. You won't regret it and will probably have the time of your life. But don't try to go 5 days in a row. Your organs will hate you. Maybe plan 2 or 3 days at the fairground during a week-long trip to Munich. And I definitely recommend a road trip through the Bavarian Alps to Neuschwanstein Castle. You've gotta see that place to believe it. After Oktoberfest, having hit Mardi Gras twice, I just have one more party to go hit up to complete my World-Renowned party trifecta: Carnival in Rio - you're next!

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