Oktoberfest!!!!

Yes i went to Oktoberfest and i survived. It was insane! So damned awesome!!!! Ok so here's a play by play. With pictures for those of you with short attention spans. at 4:30am we got on a train from Würzburg to begin our journey to the Oktoberfest in Munich. In total it was about a 4 or 4 and a half hour train ride. Super fun. The ride started out slow and quiet for the most part. But at every stop more and more people in Lederhosen and Durndels got on the train and things got rowdier and rowdier. People were bringing on entire cases of beer at lik 6 or 7 in the morning and running through all of it before we hit Munich. And most people were wearing the traditional German dress. To quote my friend Tom who was with us, "I never felt so out of place wearing a pair of jeans in my life." i mean of course we didnt want to look out of place. we had our own little bit of pre Oktoberfest drinkables. Didnt have too much though. I hate liquer and wanted to save room for the delicious Oktoberfest beer. A couple of pics of us from the train. My fellow New Yorkers, Veronica and Nicole. New Yorkers again with our German/Chicago friend So after a quick changeover we arrived in Munich a little after 830am. Once we got orientated we eventually made our way through the city to the Oktoberfest area. It was so amazing. Soooo many people were there flooding in from all directions. And there were plenty of drunks for it being so early in the morning. But it was sweet as. So we took a couple of pics and then entered the compound. So the way Oktoberfest works is that its like a giant fair. With a big open avenue down the middle and bigs tents and stands on each side of it. The big tents and beer gardens are were all the action is. So you typically want to head for one of those if you want the full experience. It is better to book a table ahead of time for your party. That way you dont have to wander around looking for vaciencies and end up queing up for long periods of time outside the tents and gardens. We didnt have any reservations so we ended up waiting on line for about maybe an hour or so for this beer garden Which we got into. Since we didnt have a reserved table we had to sit outside which was fine cause it was a nice day. We at the ends of two tables across from the asile from eachother. I sat with my good English buddy Tom and the girls sat with our Chicago buddy across from us. And then the fun began! Yea i thought i took some more pictures but i guess i didnt get too many other good ones. Sorry Veronica. So as you can see our giant beer mugs were no laughing matter. One of those full is a liter of beer. And the beer at Oktoberfest is way stronger than any of that wimpy American stuff. Its around 8% proof. Which is significantly higher than most american beers which are more around 2 or 3%. I feel proud of myself that i got through about two and a half of those. Plus a giant delicious German pretzel. But i was pretty gone by the time i stopped. It was crazy. But at least i'm learning to drink like a German. Tom and i sat next to a bunch of really nice Dutch people. They were Prosting every 5 or 10 minutes hahaha. And then across from me was this cool German dude who kept offering everybody Snuff. In my inebriation i tried it a couple of times. It clears out your sinuses but it really bad for your nose in the long run. He kept saying it is obligatory for Oktoberfest haha. Around 330 or so Veronica wasnt feeling too good. We all hadnt had too much sleep the night before and eaten hardly anything. So it all hit her pretty hard so she got pretty sick and wanted to go home. I was starting to be ready to leave at that point too so i stepped up and volunteered to take her home. By the time we were leaving it was even more crowded than in the morning. Almost like Timesqaure during Christmas. But we made it out alright and caught a cab back to the train station. Which ended up a being a free cab because i found 10 Euro on the floor of the backseat. So we caught a train to Nuremburg around 5 and transferred then to a train bound for Würzburg and were back in town around 830. Pretty quiet train rides, except for me losing the Bayern ticket we had all bought it was fine. I think i might have tried to put it in my pocket in Munich and just missed. Oh well. It wasnt that bad to get another ticket from the conductor. We took a cab back to the dorm and i made sure Veronica was alright and made her some Rice and gave her Advil before i headed off to bed. I didnt know how tired i was until i got in my bed and passed out straigt until 11 this morning. Oktoberfest = AWESOME! And not the girls are talking about trying to do it again next weekend to get it right this time. So maybe i'll do it again =) oh and GO PATS!