Oktoberfest 2010

Day 1

Woke up hung over from pre-Oktoberfest celebration...err, training ;-) Cab showed up 10 minutes late even though I called 30 minutes prior to pick up. United is having some glitch in the system, so check-in takes about 20 minutes. We check two bags and are on our way. 1PM MST.

3+ hours later and we are in Chicago. We make our way to our gate to catch the next flight to Brussels, and are bumped to a direct flight to Munich. Thats cool. While on the Boeing 777, the captain announces that those of us that were originally on the flight to Brussels don't have to worry...our luggage will be waiting for us there. What? Wait, so we ask one of the flight attendants if our luggage is going to be in Brussels and she assures us that it will make it's way to our final destination in Munich. Und Beck's!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMTYn9ycm3o

9 hours later and we touch down in Munich at 9AM local time, 1AM MST. We got about 2 hours of sleep on the flight. iPad rocks for watching movies on the plane. Way better than the laptop as far as battery consumption is concerned.

So we head down to baggage claim. No luck. We head over to the Lufthansa baggage tracing kiosk and ask about our luggage and she informs us that they are not in the system. So we hang out for 2+ hours waiting for our original flight from Brussels to land and see if our luggage is on that flight. No luck. Back to file a claim...she is confident they will have it to our hotel by the next day. No big deal, all our important stuff was in our carry-on...except our emergency Underberg, Jå!

First stop is the bank to get some Euros. There are 4 of them in the airport, so that is pretty convenient. $300 US dollars gets you just under €200. I still call them bucks.

So now we head out to the train to get to our hotel. But first some currywurst and bier! One of the fräuleins didn't speak English, but we were able to order anyway. Then her cow-orkers were giving her scheiße for not being able to speak English. And right behind us was a group of Spanish dudes that ordered in English too.





On to the hotel, Citadines which is about 5 minutes from the central train station, so we walk it. Traffic is getting kind of crazy, but its not quite rush hour. Check-in, nap for about an hour or so, then out to the local grocery store behind a Hostel, where some teens wave at us from the 6th floor.

Oh wait, first I plug a power strip into the power converter, but it was set to adapter mode sending 230v into my 120v power strip. Ahh, the smell of burnt electronics! Fortunately the converter has a built-in surge arrestor, so everything is fine. Its not really necessary since everything we have is dual-voltage, but instead of buying 4 adapters, I bought one converter/adapter and a 4 outlet 120v travel strip. Works just fine.

Post naptime, we head out to Oktoberfest to get a glimpse of the madness. We bought a day pass at the airport, so we are good to travel on all public transpo. The tram stops right in front of our hotel and right in front of the central station(Hauptbahnhof), where we transfer to the U4 to Theresienwiese, otherwise known as Oktoberfest! But its only a 15 minute walk from the hotel, so it would be easy to hoof it.






So we get to the Theresienwiese and its massive! It is about 7:30PM local time, so most everyone is already tanked. The first English we hear is from a Brit yelling "Fuck off you whore" to some dirndl-clad girl.

So we are walking and taking pictures, and I am pretty happy considering I am completely sober and jet-lagged.


Colleen is pretty excited too!

But lets not kid around, I am here to drink! Prosit! After walking through a couple of big 'tents', it is insane! We are too sober and they are too drunk for this to work out, its standing room only and everyone except some of the oldies in reserved sections are standing on the benches singing to horrible cover songs by the Umpapa bands.



Time to withdraw and head to one of the smaller beer halls that are serving food. Out of the Paulaner tent and into the Paulaner beer hall to get one of those roast chickens and a bier!



Colleen got the cheese platter.

But the jet lag was catching up to us. After 4 litres each, it was time to say gute nacht!


So here I am, it's midnight to me, but 8AM local time and the beer tents open at 10AM. We want to get there early today...I want to be one of the pissed ones we passed yesterday on the train, prosit!

Oh and our luggage would be nice too.