Oktoberfest!


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Fresh from my morning spent touring around the lakes of Königssee, I jumped on the fast train from Salzburg to Munich. Funny story the train trip. An anouncement comes over the PA 'can Mr Ross from Australia please come to the office in carraige 260'. Well it turns out that Mr Ross was the bloke sitting right behind me. Then it dawned on me what was so unusual about the journey. I didn't realise at first but there was a staggering number of young Aussies on the train, all going to Munich and all with one thing on their mind! Dead set there were so many Aussie accents, it was almost as if I was on the Illawarra line catching the train from Cronulla to the city. Anyhow everyone is curious as to what happened to Mr Ross. A few minutes pass, and we discover that Mr Ross was kissed on the arse by an angel this particular morning. Someone had handed in his travel wallet to the conductor, containing his passport, bank cards, tickets and 600 euros cash. And not a eurocent missing! Not long later I arrive at Munich Hauptbahnhof, where Matt Thompson and Belinda Handles are waiting to meet me. I haven't seen a boatie for 2 months, and it doesn't take long for the conversation to turn to 'where will we be knocking back a few beers this evening'... But first things first - tracht shopping. Matty and Handles have both heard about my elaborate Oktoberfest outfit, and will need to be suitably attired themselves. It doesn't take long to find one of the many temporary shops that are selling traditional outfits to all the tourists in town for the festival. Now, lederhosen are supposed to be tight, but not THAT tight Matty! After convincing Handles that she doesn't look like a couple of tea towels, and Matty that he should wear a matching shirt, everybody is set to go! Unfortunately we discover that Matty has left his run too late and they don't have any leather pants in his size! He settles for just a pair of braces which will go well attached to his board shorts with a bit of rope. Very Aussie.
Once again, I just love it how the Germans tell it how it is. Everytime I see this shop all I can think about is Borat. So we meet up with a couple of Matty's friends from back home - Hugh and Tom. These two also have a group of five Aussie girls tagging along with them, whom they met during their travels. Turns out they are from Penrith. It doesn't take long before I've branded them the 'Ruff squad. Unfortunately I didn't get much time for sightseeing in Munich, as I was there for one reason and one reason only - Oktoberfest. However, I could easily have spent another couple of days here (outside the beerhaus) as it is a beautiful and vibrant city. The locals are fantastic, it is clean and there are some amazing sights.
This archway leads to the main pedestrian plaza called Marienplatz where there is an abundance of shops, restaurants, beer gardens and beer halls. Some of the buildings like the old cathedrals and the Rathaus (Town Hall) are spectacularly enormous in size and beautifully ornate in their design. Again everything is so typically Bavarian, and there are lots of colours, flags and decorations everywhere. We figured what better place could there be for dinner than the biggest beer hall in all of Munich - the Hofbrauhaus. We could have a few steins and then figure out if they sold any food. In hindsight, we also should have been smart enough to realise that everyone else also had the same idea as us. They say that the population of Munich swells by around 2 million people during Oktoberfesttourist. Tonight, being the Friday before the Oktoberfest opening weekend naturally it was chock-a-block! We had to queue to get in - not for long - but realised it was impossibly busy and we would be better off going someplace else. Even though we didn't stay for a beer, it was worth it to just have a look at the joint. The atmosphere inside was unbelievable! We start looking up and down Marienplatz for a beer garden or a restaurant that has room for a table of 10 (we had the 'Ruff squad in tow) but soon realise that every tourist and his dog was looking for the same thing, so we headed west of the main drag a couple of blocks, still finding no shortage of pubs and restaurants, but a lot less crowded. We settle for a restaurant that has a little beer garden which we can have all to ourselves, and the price of the food is reasonable. Of course being in Bavaria I had to order a schnitzel. It wasn't as big as I'd hoped for but it was still delicious! We also managed to put quite a few beers away.
Here's Matty and Handles enjoying their Weissbier (wheat beer). Just like Coopers, it was a bit cloudy and quite delicious. Olly would love it. Here is Hugh exclaiming about the size of the steins we have ordered. And here is Hugh's friend Tom. Hugh and Tom were hitting up Oktoberfest for 4 days so they would be good drinking partners.
After dinner, we bid the 'Ruff squad goodnight. I gave Matty a long hard look which basically said "if we call ourselves boaties, then we'd sure as hell better not leave Munich without having a stein in a beer hall". And so we walk back to Marienplatz, and it doesn't take long to find the Augustiner Bierhalle, which although busy, is able to find a table for our depleted group of now five people. Augustiner is the same beer hall I went to in Salzburg with the two seppo shielas, and it's a bloody good drop so we devour our first steins in to time at all. For some reason it's always funny to pull a face when you are eating a pretzel. And for some reason, we are eating our hands...
The night rolls on, and we acquaint ourselves with the essentials we will need to know for Oktoberfest, such as the correct method for cheers (Prost!) and the lyrics to several German drinking songs. We also initiate some of the fun antics that will stay with us all weekend, such as 'talk like a pirate'. In 'yer pants. Arrgh! Given that they are drinking steins with three boaties, Hugh and Tom seem to be holding up pretty well. Though we soon realise that 'limbering up' with a few beers the night before isn't quite Hugh's thing... Just before we leave, Hugh projectile vomits into his empty stein glass. I have never seen anybody do this with such precision - he did not spill a drop!
   
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Description: If there is a place on earth that is better than Cronulla, I am yet to find it. However, Oktoberfest is clearly the runner up. Welcome to the 'Easter Show on steroids'. I had great expectations for this event and all of them were exceeded. This place is boatie heaven, so it was appropriate that I would meet up with two of them, even if they are from Elouera 🙂 It's hard to stand out in the crowd in a beer tent full of 10,000 drunk revellers at Oktoberfest, yet somehow I managed to pull it off, and finished off my week in spectacular and unforgettable style that I'm sure will go down in hostel history.
Location: Germany

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