Oktoberfest – Part 2

When last we discussed the joys of Oktoberfest, Vera and I had decided to stay and drink a beer, and left the others to wander around München.  Once we got in the Biergarten we realized that finding a seat was going to be difficult, but not impossible.  As one of the waiters passed by us, I asked him if one had to be seated in order to get a beer.  He confirmed this, but then asked how many seats we needed.  While there were four of us, we really only needed 2 seats, the other two could stand and as long as we could order 4 beers, it would be fine.  The waiter asked a table with a little bit of wiggle room if they would be willing to scoot down so that a couple more people could sit and we got a seat at the end of the benches.  Yea!!

We ordered our beers and waited for them to come.  I have to say that the atmosphere was actually pretty good.  To be fair it was still early in the day, but everyone was very friendly.  There were no angry or belligerent drunks, and everyone was just there to have a good time.  Now the beers were 8.50 which is a little expensive, but if you’re just going to have one beer and experience the fun that is Oktoberfest, it’s 8.50 well spent.  We got our beers, tipped our kindly waiter generously since he had found us the seats, and met the people next to us.

Short post...

I have to make this quick because the stores here are going to close for the whole weekend shortly.  Tomorrow is "Tag der deutschen Einheit" which means it's a federal holiday, which further means that all of the stores will be closed.  AND...since all of the stores are already closed on Sundays, well, you do the math.  Basically, if I want to eat anything other than potatoes, instant soup mix or yogurt, I've got to get it now.  So I'm off to the store.

But before I go, I will report on a couple of bits of exciting news.

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.

Konstanz – The Narrative

So Friday my language course planned an expedition to the Bodensee – known as Lake Constance for English speakers.  The plan was for everyone to gather behind the language institute building and depart promptly at 9am, and we almost made it, but one of the language tutors, who was responsible for the scavenger hunt around the city, overslept.  So we left a little late and then drove over to pick her up outside her apartment.

Konstanz und Oktoberfest

I will have a longer post about my grand birthday weekend, but for now, here are some photos to give you an idea.

Photos from Konstanz und Oktoberfest

A few stories/observations and stories from the past 2 weeks.

1) I tried to sleep while the Brazilians in my building had parties – twice.

The first party I didn’t know anything about.  It was the first Saturday I was here and all of a sudden the bell for our floor kept ringing and more and more people were coming upstairs.  Now at this point I had a pretty serious case of jet lag and I had taken a nap earlier in the day, which was probably a bad idea.  I was really trying to get on a regular sleep schedule, so the party was particularly disturbing.  But what was most disturbing about this party was the fact that they went away at around 11pm, and I got a couple of hours of sleep, until they came back at 3am and started listening to music and drinking some more.

Travel Update – The Final Chapter

So, where were we, ah yes, we’re in the dorm meeting the other folks on my floor.