This weekend, I traveled to Munich, Germany for an annual beer festival called "Oktoberfest." I left on Thursday night with my roommate Kaity and took a quick two hour flight to Munich. When we arrived, we struggled with public transportation to figure out how to get to our friend Colton's hotel where we were planning to meet for dinner. I thought public transportation in Spain was tricky, but Germany was a completely different struggle. German is easily the hardest language I've encountered to pronounce. We purchased a train ticket and hopped on the right train toward the city center, Hauptbahnhof. After about twenty minutes on the train, we found out there was a fire at the station closest to the stop we wanted to get off at... this was said over the speakers in German but a nice British woman translated for us. So we got off the train and took a cab, with a driver who spoke no english at all. Then we walked about ten minutes to the restaurant for dinner. German food is SO good. I had shrimp and mashed potatoes and tomato soup, and of course a pint of beer. Then Kaity and I caught the last train back to our hotel where we found two twin beds awaiting us and our two other roommates. Good thing we like to snuggle!
Me in the German Metro at Moosfeld (aren't the names funny?)
Catching the last train!
The next day our friends from USD who are studying in Florence came over bright and early (around 7:30 am) and we all got ready in our tiny hotel room. At about 8:30 we headed out to Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is essentially just a huge festival of beer. There is a giant fairgrounds area full of massive tents. Each tent has a different kind of locally brewed beer and lots of different kinds of German food inside. Inside the tents there are tons of wooden tables and benches. You have to be seated at a table to order beer, at least in the morning before it gets too crazy. We had heard that you had to line up outside at 7 am if you wanted your own table, which we obviously did not do. The first tent we saw was called Schottenhamel, so we decided to try it out. It turned out to be the biggest tent at Oktoberfest, seating 10,000 people. It was also the tent that most locals went to, and it was less crowded with Americans and other Europeans. Needless to say, we walked in and all the tables were taken, so we split up into two groups and made friends with locals and shared their tables. Germans are definitely the friendliest Europeans we have encountered thus far. They were so excited to meet Americans and hear about our study abroad experience and to teach us about all the German cultural norms that take place at Oktoberfest.
Now, to the beer. The beer is served in 1 liter mugs called steins. You cannot order a smaller glass. Waiters come out carrying eight at a time (don't ask me how, they're really heavy) and they cost about 10 euro each, but it's a necessary part of the experience. They start serving beer at about 9 am, so by 10 everything is pretty crazy already. There's a tradition that if someone stands up on their table and chugs their entire stein of beer, everyone goes crazy cheering and chanting different drinking songs and it was great when a guy at our table did it. My roommate Tallia got tricked into it as well by the Germans at our table when they all started chanting her name, and she had no choice but to finish her stein.
Go Tallia!
Kaity and me with our German table-mate Stefan
All the Germans wore authentic lederhosen, which I always thought was a silly American misperception.
The next day we went to the most popular tent among Americans, called the Hofbrauhaus.
Me, Kaity, and Tallia with our steins!
Trying to give you an idea of how crowded the tent was...
If you can see the guy standing above everyone, he had just chugged his third stein on top of the table and see how everyone is going crazy! It was so fun whenever people did this because literally the entire tent would be on their feet cheering and screaming for the person on the table.
Some of my sorority sisters on the second day
My friend Natalie, who is studying in Florence
The drinking was obviously really fun, but what was more fun was getting to know locals and really feeling like a part of a German tradition. Every single person we met was so kind and eager to learn from us, just as we were to learn from them. It was a really amazing trip. I can't wait to someday go back to Germany and enjoy their hospitality again.
We almost missed our flight home, but made it just in time and headed back to Madrid for dinner with our host family. We also have two new girls staying with us for the remainder of the semester. They are juniors at UCLA and seem very nice so far!
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