Birthday Weekend at Oktoberfest

Germany Weekend October 1 through October 3, 2010       

            Getting up at 640 in the morning is not the best thing to do the day before your birthday. But if the end result of the day gets you to Germany for Oktoberfest I feel like it might be a win. Emily and I decided on the way to the Express bus to the airport that this trip would be divided into phases. Therefore I will explain this blog in phases.

            Phase 1: Get to the bus, arrive at the airport. This was completed successfully, giving us an air of awesomeness that the first part of the trip was going good. The airport was a breeze and we got to the gate with plenty of time to spare.

            Phase 2: Get to Memmingen. So this really isn’t something we can control perse but we decided it was legitimate. Getting through customs was almost another phase because of the fact that there was no line and just a mass of people. Getting out first stamp in our passport for this semester (besides our immigration into Scotland) was the end of Phase 2.

            Phase 3: Get to Munich. This was also pretty easy because we had bought tickets for the Express bus that would take us to the center of Munich. Well, to the train station, this is close to the center of the city. Then we had to find Ellen, who was already in Munich and had been for a couple days. Finding Ellen included getting on the S-bahn (subway) and riding it to the other main station. Here we found Ellen and her new friends, but parted ways when she needed to get her stuff to put in the hotel room and we needed to go find the hotel.

            Phase 4: Find our hotel. Turns out the 55 bus only takes you so far, and getting a ticket was useless, no one ever asked to see it. There are two 55 buses on the same route that take you to different locations. Confusing? Precisely the point. The bus driver kicked us off the bus at the end and we found the next 55 bus stop a couple of blocks over. We then took this for a while, into Putzbrunn, where we waited for a bus to take us to Grassbrun where our hotel was. We got off at the wrong stop intead of Hopenhoffen Weg we got off at Hopenhoffen St. Not the same at all, about 3 km from where we wanted to be. Emily and I wondered around the streets til we found someone who could speak English and we explained where we wanted to go, she was nice enough to just take us there because either she didn’t want to explain it to us or she felt sorry for us. Either way we found the hotel around 6 pm after landing at 2.

            Phase 5: Go to Oktoberfest. This requires walking a mile into this really small town to wait for the bus, which doesn’t come but only every 1.5 hour. This makes us search for someone in this small town that knows English and can call us a taxi. Taxi gets there 20 minutes later and we get to see our first signs of civilization and of the festival about 25 minutes later. Walking around Oktoberfest was awesome, it’s basically a big fair celebrating Baravian things. Basically, beer drinking, chanting by the drunken people, and rides galore.

            Phase 6: Get back to the hotel, by taxi, then go back to Oktoberfest in the morning. This is easy enough. But I know have a new found respect for my mother and her nerves. I woke up around 730 or 8 in the morning and had a panic attack. Thinking of all the things that could go wrong, thinking of all the things that we need to do to find ourselves back at the correct airport tomorrow before noon, and not being able to do anything about it. It was scary. My mind wouldn’t stop. I don’t like this being a different country, not being able to speak English, and not knowing how to get around. I am appreciating Scotland, especially Edinburgh more and more.

            Phase 7: Drink. Meet people. Eat bratwurst. Ride the ferris wheel, and the swings. Drink more. Get food. Be done with Oktoberfest. Get back to the hotel.

Phase 8: Get to the train station in the morning so we can catch the early bus back to the airport 100 km away. Go through customs, get a stamp, wait three hours for the flight to get to the airport. Fly ‘home’, land, go through customs, and then actually get the bus back to the flat. This is just an amazing phase because of the fact that we are back in our own flat and we can calmly go through the week. I’m glad to be back and now I’m looking forward to my next trip this next weekend to Dublin!