Oktoberfest

Lunch
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Well who can complain about an entire festival that is devoted to Polka music, funny costumes, pretzel eating, and most important:  copious amounts of beer drinking.  Alan and Shotsy treated Sus, Annah, and I to a stay at the local Best Western, which was so much nicer than our standard accommodations that we were completely beside ourselves.  Since our overnight train ride from Amsterdam was somewhat of an ordeal, we got into our beautiful room and spent our first five hours in Munich sound asleep.

Lunch
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We met up with Alan and Shotsy later that evening and decided that instead of wasting time we would just head straight down to the festivities and get started with the tradition of Oktoberfest.  This was, of course, after we sat down to a bratwurst and sauerkraut dinner, that was chasing our bratwurst and sauerkraut lunch...lots and lots of of meat and cabbage.

Oktoberfest is as outrageous and bazaar as you could ever imagine.  The whole thing takes place at a fair ground on the outside of Munich.  Each German brewery sets up a huge tent in which they have rows of tables around a giant grandstand that houses the band.  The only thing that is served is beer, as you can imagine, and it only comes in huge 1 liter glasses called a mass.  If you are hungry and would like to eat you have your choice of meat, meat, or pretzels.  To add to this whole enviornment, after everyone has had a couple of masses, at about 10 in the morning, most of the people inside start standing on the tables and swinging their giant glasses about while they sing with the band.  What a sight.

Chaos
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Being our first night, and our first shot at a 1 liter mug of beer, we all went a bit overboard and payed the price heavily the next day.  However, since my buddy Rob, whom lives in Germany, came down to meet us for the weekend, i had no choice but to get back on the horse and head back to the chaos first thing the next morning.  I was alone in this venture, as everyone else had had their entire fill of Oktoberfest in one night.

The second day at Oktoberfest went about how you would expect.  We started drinking masses at about 11:00 am, and about 6 masses later, at what seemed like 10:00 pm i decided that i had had enough and made my way back home.  Of course, since i was not entirely with it, and had absolutely no idea about how to get home, this proved to be more challenging than i had planned for.  After three different train rides, a couple of which in the wrong direction, and an hour or two of walking, i arrived at our doorstep to find Sus, Annah, Alan, and Shotsy, inside our hotel bar.  I regaled them with some stories, and got a few laughs, which i later found out were mostly at me, not with me.  Whatever, always happy to please.

Beer Lady
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After one day, Rob too had had enough, and decided to head home...i can not blame him.  This got us off the hook for more masses, which was a very good thing.  Our other two days in Munich were quite peaceful.  We spent one day in Stuttgart at the Porch factory and museum, which was awesome, and another day pool side at Alan and Shotsys hotel.

We did have a stroke of luck one evening when we were leaving Alan and Shotsys hotel, and looked over across the restaurant to see my cousin Monica having a drink with a bunch of friends.  We knew that she was in Munich, but we had not had a chance to meet up, so as luck would have it we ran into her randomly and ended up hanging out and drinking champagne and fine wines for a few hours with her and her friends.  It was great to see her.

Night One
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Anyway, we are now off to our friends Rob and Jessicas house in the town of Heidelberg near Frankfurt.  We have been really looking forward to seeing them, so it should be a great time.

Take care everyone!