Oktoberfest!!!

Rhianne and I met up with her friend Susi around 11am to head to Oktoberfest!!! Whoo-hoo!!! I’ve been dreaming of this moment my entire collegiate career. Haha Oktoberfest, or as the Germans say, “weizn,” was only a 20 minute walk from the hostel which is nice. Everyone was drinking on the streets, which is legal by the way, and many of the people were dressed up in their silly outfits. The older men particularly had some style. Haha Oktoberfest reminded me of any fair I’ve ever been to, but on a much larger scale, and with more drunk people and beer everywhere. Haha There were 10 or 12 huge beer tents, each sponsored by a beer company, and all of which were lined up on the main entrance way. The rides and food stands were scattered throughout the rest of park. And there were people EVERYWHERE. Definitely a sight to see. After walking around for a bit we made our way into the Paulaner beer tent.

Inside the Paulaner tent there were tables

everywhere, a live band on a raised stage in the middle, balconies with more tables on both sides, waitresses carrying up to 12 1 liter beers at a time, green and white ribbons along the ceiling, and crazy drunken hooligans everywhere. Haha We sat down at a table, ordered some food and beers, and were quickly joined by a group of roudy/fun Italians. These guys were a lot of fun, and after saying I was from “California” (which is what I usually say btw), we were all high five-ing each other and slamming our steins together. The beer was exceptional, and is probably my favorite German beer thus far. Apparently it’s only good on tap tho, not from the bottle. Either way, two steins later, I had 4 new Italians friends and was having a great time at my first Oktoberfest. The Italians invited me to stay with them in Italy, and if the weather is nice we can all play beach volleyball together (that’s how they know each other; same volleyball team). Other randomness in the beer tent included the huge pretzels Rhianne got (with a special cheese dip).

Because Rhianne had to work later in the afternoon, we left the beer tent semi early to walk around the rest of park. We made our way to the oldest ride at Oktoberfest (huge wooden slide where you sit down on a mat and go down) which was a lot of fun. I feel like in Germany there are very little laws regarding safety, as everywhere it looks like things are a hazard. Ex. To get to the top of this ride, I had to jump on a

speeding flat treadmill and try to maintain my balance without falling before getting to the top. There is no way anyone who is drunk or has bad balance isn’t going to eat S@!* and get hurt. Anyway, after that ride, we made our way to the log ride, which turned out to be the most fun log ride I’ve ever gone on. We sadly had to leave around 2:30pm, but I definitely had an amazing time at my first Oktoberfest, and was excited to return the next day with an even bigger group of people.