Prost dass die Gurgel nicht verrost!

So, kids, I have survived Oktoberfest. I think I did it correctly, although I guess I didn't have a dirndl. A little less than correctly. Whatever. And with that, I shall tell you of my roughly 48 hours of insanity.

To start: I said before that I was bringing quite literally nothing with me. So here's an inventory of the things that I brought, all of which fit in one incredibly small purse.

1. the clothes which I was wearing (which included one tank top, one long-sleeve t-shirt, one sweatshirt, a denim jacket, jeans, underwear, socks, and Converse)
2. my burner phone
3. 100€ in cash and a credit card
4. my American drivers license
5. toothbrush and toothpaste
6. deodorant
7. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

We got to München around 6:30. We took a bus, which meant that it took a little bit longer than 3 hours. But we did bring 7 bottles of wine, potato chips, Mambas, bananas, and nuts with us, so that made it better. When we arrived however, we soon realized that we had not a clue of how to get to our hostel, the All-Inclusive Munich Campsite. I sort of remembered the name of the street it was on, but that was rather unhelpful. We wandered to a Tourist i and after a talk with a cranky man almost entirely in German, we managed to find it. The campsite is a little ways out of Munich, and it required us taking a train and a bus, but it was probably only a 20 minute trip from the Hauptbahnhof, so not too bad. When we arrived at the bus stop, we met some Australians and some kids from Georgia Tech, who are studying abroad in France. One of whom went to high school with Yasmine. Super weird. 

In any case, we checked in. Or Theron and I did and Julius and Yasmine stood around sketchily. (We only paid for a two person tent, and we intended upon throwing 4 people in it.) We probably stood in line for a really long time, but in order to distract us from that the staff continued to supply us with really crappy bier, which we started to affectionately call swamp cock. Well, we did eventually find our tent, continued to drink more of the wine, and went to large hangout area/bar. There we found our friends from Georgia Tech. It was a night of chilling, wine, shitty bier, french fries, and me babbling way too much. Probably the best of it was that we were probably the only ones at the campsite who spoke German. I proceeded to annoy the hell out of the Georgia Tech kids by speaking to them only in German. All quite lovely. 

Playground Shenanigans.

We got up super early on Saturday to get to the bier tents. However, upon getting there we got distracted by all the rides and yummy smelling food (Our 'hot and hearty' campsite breakfast was only lukewarm and a tiny bit hearty) so we didn't really make it into the tents before they got absolutely packed. Instead, we found the Spaniards, bought some litres of wine, and went to the park. For a while, we sat on the playground, drinking our litres until a father informed us that 'es ist verbotten.' Then we moved to the benches next to the playground--really good influences, us Deutsch Kompakt kids. 

After the wine debauchery, we met up with the rest of the Deutsch Kompakt kids. We went to a Döner restaurant, and one who shall not be named managed to break a countertop. That was a debacle. 

The rest of the evening was a mass of rushing around Oktoberfest, buying overpriced bullshit, and eventually ending up in the bus station. A group of Deutsch Kompakt kids and myself left the big group and started wandering around the grounds. We tried to get into tents, but it didn't work--naturally--and we ended up going on a really fun swing ride. We decided then to go to a kneipe instead, but ended up at the bus station. The Swedes and I hung out in a restaurant called Vapiano, where we had some drinks before I dropped them off at their bus. Afterwards, I found a rather drunk Theron and brought him back to the tents. I was planning on going to sleep, but instead I went to the hang out area to have a swamp cock bier. There, I met another girl named Sarah, who is studying abroad in Italy. Later, Owen, one of the Georgia Tech kids, met up with us, and we just chilled until the wee hours of the morning. 

My one bier at Oktoberfest

This morning, after a night of very little sleep, Theron and I dragged ourselves back to Oktoberfest. I finally had my one (wicked overpriced) beer in the Hippodrom tent (as Mr. Zarwell said "Have one for me. But then stop. Because have you seen the size of those mugs?!) and ate some bayerische food, called Obatzder. Obatzer is a cheese-spread type thing with loads of garlic and onions. You can put it on butter or brezeln. Quite delicious. Afterwards, we managed to locate Julius and then hung out in Munich until our bus at three. This included going to a different restaurant later and ordering more bayerisches essen. This time Theron and I split a Schweinshaxe, which translates to pig ankle, which was also super delicious. The rest of the time was a lot of bummelning in the cold and warm coffee shop sitting. 

All in all, it was a weekend of complete and utter insanity, but that's the way it should be, right?