München und Oktoberfest - The Beginning

So after that jam packed day at the Bodensee, we decided that we would get up at the crack of dawn and head to Munich.  The German rail system has a pretty sweet ticket called the “Schönes Wochenende” ticket where 5 people can travel one day on the same ticket anywhere in Germany for the 37 Euros as long as the trip doesn’t go beyond 3am the following day, so if you leave at 6:30 am on Saturday and the trip is good until 3am Sunday morning.  It’s not a bad deal, and if you are just doing a day trip it means you can travel all the way to Munich and back for 7.40 if you’ve got 5 people.  The only downside is that you can only travel on regional trains which often stop at every little town along the way and often take a bit longer, but it’s super cheap so who cares.



So we got together 3 groups of 5 and headed off to Munich.  We met at the Tübingen train station at 6:15.  Well that’s not quite true.  We were going to meet at the train station at 6:15, but the group coming from the dorms that are pretty far away missed a bus, or the bus didn’t come, or something, so they got there about 2 minutes before the 6:28 train left.  However, they made it and that’s all that matters.  Since we could only take regional trains it also meant that we had to change trains 3 times – which was also fine, but each train was more and more full of people going to Oktoberfest.  So while we were comfortably seated in seats for the first train, in the second train there were a few people who had to stand, in the third train we all stood, and in the last train we encountered groups of people wearing Dirndl and Lederhose who were already drinking.  It was 9am and they were drunk – not tipsy, but DRUNK.  And not drunk from the night before, but they had clearly started their day with beers, champagne and wine.  It was quite a sight to see.  When we finally arrived in München we were already tired.

Immediately after getting off the train, we split into groups and headed out into the city.  In my group it was Vera (Hungary), Eduarda (Portugal), Iva (Czech Republic), Elvira (Hungary), Adam (Poland), Aslı (Turkey) and me.  Half of the group wanted to use the restroom, but the line was so long that we decided to find the tourist information center, grab some coffee, and then head to Oktoberfest.  I had been to the Munich train station before I had an idea where the tourist information center was, so I told them to stay put and grabbed three maps and asked for directions.  Then I texted them to meet me up front.  From the train station we could see an Italian Ice Cream/Cappuccino restaurant, so we went there ordered some coffee, and planned the rest of our day.

Our first stop was Oktoberfest, so we left the café and headed off to the Theresienwiese.  At some point it was completely unnecessary to use the map because you could see hoards of women in Dirndl and men in Lederhose heading in one direction, which was CLEARLY the direction of Oktoberfest.  The way we entered the ‘Wiesn, was through the area with the carnival rides and games, which was really cool.  It reminds me of a state fair, but you trust that the rides aren’t going to break (I mean they’re German…come on) and there’s a lot more drinking out in the open.  There are also a lot of people, so it’s very easy to get lost in the crowd.  As we wandered around looking at the rides, the hats, cookies, knick-knacks, etc…, Vera and I decided it was time to find a Festzelt to have some beer.  We told this to the group and then they kinda disappeared.  A good chunk of the wandering around time was spent looking for people because they got left behind taking pictures.

Anyway, once we started looking around at the Festzelte we realized that since we didn’t have reservations, we were going to have to find an outside beer garden to get a beer.  The beer gardens are just fine, probably a bit rowdier than the tents, but they are completely packed.  So we found the Spaten Biergarten and decided that was where we were going to try to get a beer, but when we got the entire group there, some didn’t want to drink a whole Maß (1 Liter), others didn’t want to deal with the crowds, and there was a lot of complaining.  So we left the Biergarten and discussed what to do from there.  At this point Vera turned to me and said that she wanted to stay and have a beer.  Half the group, however, was ready to leave and just head into Munich.  Having already seen most of the pedestrian area of Munich, both on my honeymoon and previous trips, I didn’t feel like I needed to see it again, and since I didn’t know when I would be in Munich for Oktoberfest again, I decided that I wanted to stay too.  This is when we decided to split up the group.

Vera and I decided to put on a united, but friendly, front and suggest that we meet up with them later, because we wanted to have a beer.  We figured we were going to be alone in this endeavor, but then Adam and Elvira piped up and said that they wanted to stay as well. (Whoo hooo!!) So we parted ways, and the four of us went about finding a place to sit in the madhouse that was the Spaten Biergarten.

To be continued…