The Most EPIC Party on Earth: OKTOBERFEST!

I know what you're thinking.  I can see the judgment in your eyes (tinged with a dose of jealousy, perhaps).  But regardless of the stereotypes, and no matter what you might have heard about it from the movies, I don't care... because my weekend at Oktoberfest was one of the best weekends of my life!!!

We had heard that flights and hotels tend to get booked fast, so a large group of students began planning the trip back in April.  Even then, we were too late and airfare was rather expensive.  After a long summer and the strenuous orientation program here in Versailles, we were all excited and nervous to make our first weekend excursion outside of France.  Our "pseudo-mom" Magali (the Versailles program administrator) was nice enough to organize a coach bus for 30 of us to take to the airport, since the train to Charles de Gaulle was under construction.  We all managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4:00am, get to school by 5:00am, and take the bus for our 8:00am flight.

Once I was on the plane, I was too excited to catch up on sleep.  Our plane had to circle around Paris, and since I had a window seat I got a perfect view looking north with the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Seine laid out perfectly before me.  After a few minutes of gazing, I remembered that I was going to Germany and knew absolutely NO German... so even though I knew I could get by with English, I took out my guidebook and started memorizing phrases.  Thank goodness I did, because I frequently had to ask "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" (Do you speak English?) to random people.

The flight was under an hour and a half long, so I enjoyed the scenery briefly.  I couldn't tell where France stopped and Germany started, but there were lots of pretty clouds nestled low in the valleys of little hills.  Once we descended into Germany, I could see nothing but farmland spotted with cute little red and white villages.

I was immediately amazed at how true the stereotypes of German cleanliness and orderliness are once we entered the Munich airport, or Flughafen.  Despite this being one of the city's busiest weekends, the airport was dead silent and there weren't lines for anything.  We got our first dose of German hospitality when a nice lady came up to us and gave us a free transportation pass!  And when the same thing happened to another group of our friends, we knew it was no coincidence.... German people are just awesome.

We hopped on the S-Bahn 8 train, which took us towards the city at an amazing speed.  Once again, all I could think was, "Why is Germany so awesome?!"  We got off at Daglfing (the names are rather funny) and easily caught a bus towards the Wies'n-Camp, the campground where we would be sleeping later that night.  I was once again amazed by the smoothness of the transportation system (why don't ALL buses have TV screens showing upcoming stops?!) and we only had to walk 5 minutes to find the camp.  Hundreds of tents were lined up in a small stadium, and a large welcome tent room was open with food and drinks.  The people working there were all young, under 30, and were wearing fashionable lederhosen and dirndls (traditional German male and female outfits, respectively).  More guys tended to wear bundhosen, slightly longer shorts, and I was surprised at how good they looked.  Everyone there was very friendly and I was able to reserve a tent with my friends Brittany, Sam, and Shachi with no problem.

After waiting a VERY long time for about 20 of our friends to catch up and check in at Wies'n-Camp, we finally headed off to find the festival.  We accidentally took a wrong turn, but we ended up at a bus stop where we caught a bus and hoped it was going the right direction.  Fortunately, a very nice Australian lady living in Munich helped us find our way to the correct stop.  The train got more and more crowded and I saw a great variety of traditional German outfits.  We definitely knew where to go when we saw the huge crowd of dressed-up people trying to get up the escalators at the Theresenwiese stop.  It was great to finally ascend into the sunshine with all of the sights and sounds of Oktoberfest overloading my senses!

There were food stands everywhere selling pretzels and sausages; I could see rollercoasters and numerous rides spread throughout the park; the sound of Bavarian oompah music could be heard everywhere; and once we turned a corner I got my first view of the famous German beer tents.  These were no mere tents: they were enormous buildings featuring lavish decorations, loud music, and even beer-drinking animatronics perched on the roofs.  Each was very unique, having its own style and its own special beer.  We walked around in a haze for a while, trying to soak it all in, and eventually we ended up outside the Löwenbräu tent.

It was too hard to get inside without a reservation, so about 10 of us stood on the outdoor porch and enjoyed the festivities.  We each bought a 10€ stein of Löwenbräu beer from a waitress and looked at everyone's cool costumes.  Yes, there were occasionally guys on tables chugging their beer, but it didn't get too crazy -- it was more about cheering people on and having a fun time.  (Though, for the record, I'm pretty sure now that a single German guy could outdrink a whole fraternity of American boys.)

Considering the fact that I don't even like beer that much, I was amazed at how good this stuff was.  After I finished, Brittany and I decided to go ride one of the rollercoasters, which was really fun!  (Even after a liter of beer!)  Then we found some friends in front of the Hippodrom, which was a very vibrant tent that appealed to lots of teens and 20-somethings.  We failed to sneak in, since there were some scary German guardmen at all the entrances, so I suppose I'll just have to go back one of these days.  I bought a pretzel and some currywurst for dinner, and the sausage in particular was very good.

Eventually, a bunch of us ended up at the Armbrustschützenzelt tent, which was the highlight of the evening.  My friend Allie and I had nowhere to sit on the outside porch, so we squeezed onto the end of a table of random German kids.  That ended up being a great decision because we all started talking and getting to know one another!  Judy, Bernhard, and Jan (like "yann", a guy) were all really cool.  We drank some of the Paulaner beer which was possibly even better than the last one.  After meeting lots of cool people from all over the world, we were exhausted at the end of the night and decided to head back towards Wies'n-Camp.  But we couldn't help having one last view of the beer festival, so we went up on the tall swing ride and got a great view of all the lights and colors!

It was sad to leave, but I don't think we would have survived much longer.  Little did I know, back at the camp I was about to have the worst night of sleep in my entire life.  In retrospect it's a funny story -- but at the time, all I could do was hope for the morning to come!  Brittany and I decided to save money and not rent a mat or sleeping bag for our tent, since we had packed plenty of layers.  We just thought we were so smart.  "We'll be fine!"  Nevertheless, even with 3 shirts and a fluffy sweater on, along with 2 pairs of pants, ski socks, and a winter hat, I had never been so cold in my entire life.  We didn't realize the ground would get well below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, even though the weather had been great that day.  Brittany and I kept waking up and shifting around every 45 minutes or so....  To keep our bodies off the ground, we tried some hilarious sleeping positions: first spooning each other to stay warm; then curled up in balls, sitting up; then on our knees in a yoga pose; finally, I just gave up and tried to stop shivering!  It was pretty miserable.  We could hear people in the neighboring tents as if they were in our own, so we could hear other international kids suffering as well.  We also had the pleasure of hearing someone throw up right outside our tent (we were too cold to do anything about it, though).  Around 8:00am, we were all very excited to get up and enter the welcome tent, which had heaters.

My breakfast of a muffin and coffee was actually quite good.  (Of course, it didn't hurt that a bunch of extremely attractive German boys were working the tent, all of whom looked great in lederhosen and were very friendly!)  Brittany and I had a 4:20pm plane back to Paris, so we were excited to explore the actual city of Munich before leaving in the afternoon.  I asked one of the guys what we should do with our last few hours in Munich, and he brought over all of his friends and they debated the best places for us to see.  They kindly got us a subway map and marked out the best plazas and restaurants.  We headed towards the Science and Technology Museum, which is supposed to be really cool, but either it was closed or we were at the wrong entrance. We met a very nice elderly German couple along the way, though.  Instead we decided to wander up the river, and soon we accidentally ran into the huge Oktoberfest parade.

We found a better viewing spot and watched all the groups of people in costumes passing by.  There were horses dragging barrels of beer, people walking trained dogs, marching bands, and lots of people dressed in old military costumes.  Each group represented a different time period, and one of the groups looked as though it represented a 20th century military group.  Their costumes were gray and they had yellow, red, and black banners.  This rose some interesting questions -- how does Germany honor its war veterans?  Are they even allowed to do that?  From what I could tell, the country just pretends that World War II didn't happen.  Then again, it's weird to see Dachau on the subway map, as if the former concentration camp site is just like any other stop.  I wish I could have asked someone about it, but I think it's a very touchy subject there.... so I let it go.

Anyway, Brittany and I started to walk along the parade route when we realized, after an hour, that it was not going to end any time soon.  We went through some of Munich's main streets and passed by a fancy shopping district and some large pretty museums.  After asking for some more directions, we found our way into what looked like the brewery district.  We SO HAPPY to find the infamous Hofbräuhaus, one of the world's oldest beer halls!  (Random fact: I just found out 2 seconds ago on Wikipedia that Hitler used to love having Nazi meetings and parties there.  In retrospect, that's pretty creepy, but I guess beer is beer -- everyone loves it.)  Brittany and I walked in and were so glad to discover what we had missing all along from the Oktoberfest beer tents: there were huge tables of people eating hearty German food and drinking from giant steins; the walls were decorated with vintage German artwork; and a band was playing fun oompah music on a stage in the center.  We didn't know how to get a waiter's attention, so we just sat down at one of the big tables.

Everyone there was in a good mood, so we briefly chatted with a table of Italians before a table of Americans invited us to join them.  That sounded better than eating alone, so we joined this group of older guys from Connecticut.  They were actually really nice and we had a good time just talking about all of the fun times to be had at Oktoberfest.  A father and son there convinced me that nothing could be better than having a family reunion in Munich... So, ok? Hear that, family? Let's make it happen.

We decided to be adventurous and ordered the most German-looking thing on the menu.  Try pronouncing this: it was called "knusprig gebratene schweinshaxn."  Yea... we just pointed to the words!    It turned out to be a pig knuckle with potato dumplings in the most delicious gravy I've ever tasted in my life.  That was a LOT of meat to eat, but it was so good!  We also tried two different types of radlers, which a lot of people recommended.  Mine was a light beer mixed with lemonade, and as usual, it was amazingly delicious (and, as usual, the only size available was 1 liter... haha!).  At one point, our table of American guys started cheering and toasting for no reason and we joined them.  Suddenly the entire restaurant decided to join us, and we reveled in a full minute of noisy cheering -- that is, until a huge German guy came barking at us to pipe down!  ("Thees eez a restaurant, not a beah tent!")  It was a bit frightening but very funny.  We stayed and chatted for a while before sadly leaving.  I couldn't help but buy a Hofbräuhaus stein for the road, though... now I'll always have a bit of Munich at home!

We ended the day by taking a seat at one of the city's prettiest areas, the Marienplatz.  It features a giant gray Neo-Gothic cathedral, which has a really cool Glockenspiel made of little dolls that move around when the clock chimes.  With all of the flowers and all of the people bustling around the plaza, it was a great place to just sit and people watch for a while.

Eventually, it was time to catch the S-Bahn back to the airport.  I bought a gingerbread heart cookie reading "Oktoberfest 2010" for the road -- however, nothing could assuage my sadness, and I left Munich more grudgingly than I've ever left anywhere else.  It was honestly one of the happiest, liveliest places I have ever seen in my whole life, and the prospect of going back to grumpy Versailles was disheartening.  When I was back in Paris, I accidentally said "Danke schön" to a cashier at a store, which proved that ditching the German mindset was going to be difficult!

All in all, I can't wait to go back to Germany.  I felt very much at home there, and not even because of my heritage.  If I'm lucky, I'll find myself once again at Oktoberfest with friends and family sometime in the near future!