To Oktoberfest and Beyond

This story begins with a change of plans - the classic hitch - but this one was more of a boon than a hitch. Realizing that a train from St Petersburg to Munich would take over 40 hours on multiple trains while costing as much as a flight, we took the obvious option of a flight. Bidding До Свидания to Russia, we arrived in Munich a whole weekend earlier than we planned - and the weekend in question just happened to be the opening weekend of Oktoberfest 2015. So we got drunk.

Our arrival in Munich was relatively seamless as far as everything going according to plan (not counting some rambunctiosly drunk Russians butting in to the customs line). What wasn't seamless was culture shock, or should I say, economic shock. Metro rides for the past several months have cost next to nothing - 20 cents in India and Moscow, 50 cents in St Petersburg, 20 cents for a bus ride in Kyrgyzstan, a dollar for the bus in China. In Munich, however, one half-hour metro ride was $15 - enough for 10 chicken shawarma!! 

Despite the sharp uptick in general expenses, Munich was a city to behold. We arrived Friday evening to a beautiful old neighborhood, Marienplatz (not to be confused with the popular Mariannenplatz), complete with tiny bakeries, local bars, and a beautiful old gothic church right across from where we would stay. We had a quiet night that night, but this was only to prepare ourselves for the next day - the official first day of Oktoberfest, THE unparalleled event of legend for young males who love to drink beer. 

By 06:00am the next morning we were lined up outside of the Löwenbräu beer tent with hundreds (if not thousands) of other rowdy young Germans and tourists, lederhösen'd and drindl'd to the nines. (Side note: In the end we decided not to fork out the 100+ euro for a complete lederhosen set, instead adding that money to the beer budget, which was steep - if not just for the price of a stein, but for the sheer amount of steins consumed). In line we met up with my good friend Matthias, who I met while he was on exchange at UBC. It took him about 10 seconds of staring at my horrible bearded face to recognize me, but when he eventually did we snuck into the front of the line alongside him and his girlfriend Jie. The lines finally started moving around 09:00am, and we were inside at a table by 10:00, mowing down on pretzels and cola-mix (cola and orange soda, a popular beverage in Germany). At 11:00, the world-famous-ish Oktoberfest Half Chickens were available, and as we had already been up for 6 hours, we feasted on the crispiest, saltiest, most delicious half-chicken you've ever had in your life. 

You may be asking yourself, "Why weren't they drinking beer?" Well, the answer is not "because it was 11 in the morning which is far too early for most people to have their first beer", that would be far too reasonable and we are not "most people". All we were doing was waiting for the mayor of Munich to waltz into the tent and tap the first keg, which happens at noon on the first day of the festivities. And waltz in he did, along with a fantastic Bavarian parade complete with a marching band playing traditional Bavarian beer songs. Everyone stood on their chairs for this parade, and did not sit down for the rest of the day, much to the chagrin of the benches and tables. After a lull in the music and a speech from the mayor, he finally tapped the first keg and filled the first stein of Oktoberfest 2015. The first beer was quickly slammed by a drindl'd young lady on the center stage, who then proceeded to hand out beers to all the patrons surrounding the center stage. The traditional Bavarian music broke out once again, and, almost too quickly, we were four steins of beer into the biggest party of our lives (by the way, a stein is one liter of beer).

Aaaaand that's all we can tell you about day one, chiefly because we can't remember much more. The next day we were all aboard the Struggle Bus - my jeans were covered in mud, we all had headaches, and Alex couldn't walk on his left leg. Me and Paul walked around Munich for 3 hours looking for a grocery store that would give us sweet, sweet hangover relief, before remembering that we were in Munich, where grocers don't open on Sundays. Despite our disappointment, we gave ourselves a great walking tour of the city, so all was not in vain. That afternoon, our host Marie arrived, along with our pals Corina and, later that evening, Dan (who by the way will be jumping into the blog rotation after this post). We had a rational evening of light conversation and home-cooked pasta, then slept like babies. No beer tonight - no one was ready just yet. 

The next day we attended Oktoberfest again, but this time we were going to have a little more restraint... Well, that's what we hoped we would do. We didn't get there until 5:00pm, the hour at which there is usually seats available because the day-drinking crowd have drunk themselves under the tables, vacating seats for a new wave of debauchery artists such as ourselves. With the help of a server, we found seats between a promenade of young Dutch guys and an older crew of coworkers from a local restaurant. It took us one or two steins to catch up and get the conversation flowing, but soon we were laughing and bonding and hearing about how our beards make us look like terrorists. We resolved to trim our beards the next day. Soon they left (or were kicked out, I'm not sure), and suddenly we were the drunkest group at the table - four steins in and no signs of slowing. 

And that is all I can say about day two of Oktoberfest, for largely the same reasons I couldn't say more about day one. To our credit, we decided this would be the last day of the festival, and we stuck to our promise. The rest of our days in Munich were spent exploring the city - some of our favourite spots being the English Gardens and Mariennenplatz. We ate roast vegetables for dinner and had traditional Bavarian breakfasts of weißbier and weißwurst with sweet mustard. And finally, with the comments from the previous night and Marie's insistence, we trimmed our beards down to reasonable sizes, as we were in fact no longer in Central Asia, where our beards were so celebrated. 

Staying with Marie was such a great way to experience Munich - not only did we dodge the steep hostel prices and hang out with an old friend, but we got a local's insight into the best things about Munich and Bavaria; and although we didn't take her advice on when to stop ordering steins, we were enormously grateful for her hospitality. On Thursday morning we said goodbye to Corina and Marie, and with Dan in tow, took the metro to an auto shop where we were to pick up our rented camper van. Our travels were about to change drastically - no more long distance planes and trains to hotspots - now we were on our own, with the ability to get far off the beaten tourist track whenever we wanted. Let the backwoods adventures of Eastern Europe begin!