PROST from Oktoberfest!

MUNICH, GERMANY

This pic isn't blurry...it's just taken through beer goggles.

                













           
             First thing’s first- Oktobferfest began in 1810 as a royal wedding celebration.  To this day, German women braid their hair and prance around in their flattering (and classy!) Bavarian dresses while the men successfully look masculine in their lederhosens and wool socks!  Over 5 million people pack inside the enormous fairgrounds to enjoy the plethora of carnival rides, games, food and, of course beer.  There are 14 massive beer tents within the 103 acres of fairgrounds that people can enter…and stumble out of…freely.  There are roughly 7million liters of beer served each year….and the beer must be brewed within the city limits of Munich in order to be served at Oktoberfest.  The festivities begin in September….NOT October.  It’s a common misconception so absorb this and be the smartest amongst your friends.  Oktoberfest begins in September and rolls its way into the first week of Oktober.  The total celebration is between 16-18 days depending on the year.  The crowd is made up of 72% Bavarians, 15% foreign visitors and 13% ‘Other’.  I don’t know what ‘other’ is.  Animals, aliens?

                Ok, now that the scene is set, I can rave about the party atmosphere.  I’m a self-proclaimed controlled partier.  I love having a good time but I’m not an idiot.  I have been lucky enough to attend some of the best parties in the world during 2011- Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Stampede in Calgary and Oktoberfest in Munich.  Most people assume the worst in debauchery amongst these scenes but that’s not the case.  There is a reason why these events are so successful.  And that reason is: commitment.  Everyone who attends these parties is committed to having a good time!  They tune out their responsibilities and are given a few days of total freedom.  That doesn’t mean they all transform into Jekyls.  It means their focus is on fun…and not their blackberries.  They’re not interested in what the rest of their network has posted on facebook, they don’t care what TV show their missing- they don’t prefer to be anywhere else than where they are.  And that’s an incredible feeling.  Most of you have been at a wedding and said, ‘When are they gonna cut the freakin’ cake so we can get out of here’.  That doesn’t happen at these organized celebrations.  There is so much infectious merriment going around that I never saw any fighting.  That’s pretty impressive when you think of the amount of people plus the amount of beer present.  It should also be noted that any event that requires dressing up in costumes shows more commitment amongst its attendees and is destined to be a good time.

                On with the story already!  Ok.  I met up with 2 of my hosts named Thomas and Erik amongst the beer gardens and they were already two sheets to the wind.  They were SO friendly and welcoming!  I ordered my first Oktoberfest stein and learned my first (and most important) German word- PROST!!  That is the German phrase for ‘Cheers’ so I got very good at saying it!  We walked into the surrounding beer tent and I was immersed in the energy. Everyone was standing on their picnic table benches singing and dancing to the standard German drinking songs (as well as modern rock) being played by the band on stage.  The typical 2am bar sing-along you’ve seen in most places can be seen at any time of the day in Munich at Oktoberfest!  I was surprised to find the crowd poured their hearts out for ‘I’m Loving Angels Instead.’  I wish someone had told me to beware of the flimsy picnic table benches- it didn’t take long before Erik sent beers and bodies flying when he knocked us all over!  My first night in Munich was a ton of fun!

Let Oktoberfest begin!

Erik gets grabbed by the ear for knocking over the tables

                I made the most out of my days by planning small excursions outside of Munich.  I took the train 2 hours outside of the city to visit the famous Neuschwanstein Castle.  Even Walt Disney couldn’t resist its charm- it served as his inspiration for the design of Sleeping Beauty’s castle in Disneyland.  Awwww!  King Ludwig II of Bavaria used his personal fortune to build this magnificent retreat and homage to composer Richard Wagner in 1869.   Strangely enough, the country opened it as a museum only weeks after his mysterious death at the young age of 32.  I think a CSI team should head to the Bavarian mountains- there are far too many questions left unanswered.

Model of the castle

I would gladly be locked in one of those towers

                That evening, my hosts were too tired for another night of Oktoberfest so I went out alone.  It didn’t go so well.  The merriment was overshadowed by lots of drunken men acting inappropriately.  I met too many creepos.  After kindly telling some 20 year old punks I wasn’t interested, they threw food at me so I got in their face and let them know that American women don’t stand for that.  I met a group later that was ok but really wished I had my own crew that night.  I must have been in a protective masculine bubble the night before without even realizing it.

                I had a sobering experience at the Daschau concentration camp the following morning.  It was a very thorough museum and memorial but SO sad and terrible.  Surprisingly, I didn’t see anyone crying besides myself.  I can’t believe human beings are capable of treating other human beings like that.  And I don’t know how they were able to persuade so many people to follow. It only reaffirmed that fear can make people do terrible things.  How could this have ever happened in a mainstream, civilized area of Germany in the 20^th century.  Absolutely mind-blowing.  I spoke to many Germans about WW2 and commend the new generations for confronting their horrific 20^th century history instead of sweeping it under the rug.

                I enjoyed the third night of Oktoberfest with a bunch of Aussies I met at the Neuschwanstein Castle.  I’m glad it only cost me two steins to have a loosey goosey time in the beer tents.  At 10 euros per stein, the men dug deeper in their pockets.  Finally a female perk!  We bear children, receive less compensation by our employers and can’t go out alone without being harassed…but at least we don’t have to spend so much on beer.  Can I get a ‘Hell yeah’?!

Aussie, Clancy, arrives with steins

Can you find the four Aussies in this picture?

Sad, drunk and tired sing-along...

          I found myself on my own for the fourth and final night and am thrilled to report that it was AWESOME!  I visited the tent with the ‘Devil’s Wheel’, which is a disk that people sit and desperately hold on while it spins in different directions at various speeds until everyone is thrown off.  They need this tent at the Topsfield Fair!  They choose different groups each time by announcing ‘All men in Leiderhosens’ or ‘All women without Bavarian dresses’ and people race towards the middle of the disk.  I won a hulahoop competition amongst 6 German girls while the disk was spinning.  Then each girl had to climb on top of a guy and we all held on for dear life.  Here’s how that one ended:

Hula hooping!

"All men with lederhosens"

Then I crashed an older guy’s bachelor party, which was really cool.  The older men were running out of steam after 3 days at the festival so I gave them a small revival.  They were so impressed with my traveling but also so worried that I was doing it all on my own.  When I left them, I asked some guy to use his phone and it turned out he graduated from BC in 2010.  He had lost all of his friends so we went to grab a beer.  We met a whole group of great people who invited us up on their table and benches for the late night sing-along.  The BCer had to leave but I stayed with this exceptional group for the rest of the night!  Tabea, Nicole and Kristina were SO cool.  I wish these girls lived in the USA! 

PROST!

Kristina and Nicole

Since I began my travels in March, I have to admit that I love Germans more than any other travelers that I’ve come across!  My experience with my couch surfing hosts in Munich pretty much epitomizes Germans.  I stayed with 5 guys who were studying different types of engineering (since everyone in Germany is an engineer)!  They were smart, funny, open-minded and always looking for fun. One day we walked around the city and Erik found an abandoned kids’ size scooter so he rode it around for the day and ended up riding it through the fountains in the main square.  And then they had the idea of just trying to trade it with strangers for other things and see how far we could get with bartering. Just for fun.  And then they made one of the walls in their apartment a guestbook so all friends and couchsurfers wrote messages and quotes on it with a Sharpie. I left this one by John Lennon that I heard the other day: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” 

Sightseeing in Munich on that kiddie scooter

               I liked that. And then they had a diary by the toilet that people could write in…just to express yourself while you’re taking care of business.  And they had a cleaning schedule on which they divided up the tasks bi-monthly and if the tasks weren’t done by Tuesday evening they had to buy a case of beer for the house.  Oh and they were so communal!  They just shared everything that they had with me (and each other) and it was such a good feeling.  I just really felt like they lived in such a healthy bubble of life.  It was surprising to see 5 guys work so well together.  They recycled everything (as all Germans do) and even kept compost!  I don’t think I know 5 other 25 year-olds that even know what compost is. It was just really cool to be around people like that. 

                OKTOBERFEST WAS GOOD TO ME!  Thanks, Munich!   Everyone should visit Oktoberfest at least ten times in their life. Oh wait, is that NOT the saying?