Once Upon a Stein in Germany...

This story begins with a trip to Munich during Oktoberfest. With a group of students who took a nine hour over night bus ride to one of the biggest Carnival/Beer Festivals in the world: actually probably the only Carnival/Beer Festival in the world! And had an awesome adventure!

Oktoberfest is the place to be during the months of September and October for people all over the world. We arrived at the campsite where we stayed on Friday morning. The three of us set up our tiny little tent and then hopped on a bus that took us to the festival. Oktoberfest literally is a carnival: spiny rides, role-coasters, a fairs wheel, and a ton to fair food (but Germany style). I road two role-coasters and four crazy spinney rides. Ate nothing but Bratwursts and pretzels. And drank nothing but beer. It was soo much fun!

Along with all of the rides and booths that are set up where about seven huge tents: each for a different beer company. On the outside they were totally decked out in that company’s logo. Then on the inside they looked like huge dining halls with hundreds of people packed in. In order to be served you had to find a place to sit, which was the main challenge. But it was never really that hard for American girls to find a place to sit. Everyone just ended up sitting with anyone, and making lots of new friends! Once you found a place to sit and made some new friends you were serves huge things of beer, Steins. I have never seen mugs so big or so many people with soo much beer, haha. The beer was really good! Not the cheep stuff in kegs at Frat houses, this was the real stuff. The beer you drink to enjoy! And we did!

We were there for a few hours on Friday then caught the bus back to the camp ground where we were staying. It was sorta like the festival just moved from the carnival to the camp group because every hostel, hotel, and campground was full of people going to Oktoberfest! The camp group we were at was run by Australians who came to work in Germany for the summer, sweet job.

We got up at about 5:30 on Saturday and were bused to a sports bar type area near the festival to watch a rugby game… We are still not sure why we ended up there, but it was fun for a bit and when we got board (around 8:00) we left. We got into one of the huge tents again and had Steins and Bratwursts for breakfast! Even at 9:00am there were hundreds of people there and more coming. The best part about being in a huge tent with hundreds of people were the toasts. Over the roar of the crowd you would hear someone start yelling something in another language, then everyone would start yelling, stand, clink glasses, then sit back down and resume conversation. It was so funny! A mass agreement that everyone was having a good time :)

We had a beer and some German breakfast on Sunday morning, then left on the nine hour bus ride home. It was a good weekend! Very… Hmm lets say, ‘cultural’ weekend :)

(pictures to come soon)