Ciao Tutti!
Again, about two weeks since my last post.. I know you have all been on edge, just waiting for my next novel to be published. I am so so sorry that I have kept all my loyal fans waiting for me! Anyway, the last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of events. Since my last post, I have led quite the life. Last weekend, as most of you know, I went to Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany! Let me just say.. no words. But I will do my best to try and recap with the best description that I can.
Thursday Night: Bus leaves the train station at 11:30 p.m. Get ready for an 8 hour bus ride to Germany! That part of the journey wasn't too bad.. Except for the pit stop at 3:30 a.m.. not sure why they think that is a good time to stop, but I suppose it's because it is right in the middle of the trip. I slept about 6 hours on and off on the bus, which I think is pretty good considering that we had absolutely no leg room.. We arrived in Munich around 9 in the morning on Friday and since we planned to meet up with our friends, we walked straight to the train station to find them. Once we got there, we all realized that our campsite was a train ride away from downtown Munich so we needed to buy a ticket for the weekend. But first, we HAVE to try a pretzel.. what else is there to eat in Germany? :) So Ana and I buy our first pretzel of many at the train station. Once we got onto the train, we had to figure out where we were going exactly. Our campsite was called Weisncamp. We knew the stop to get off at, but weren't sure where to go from there. After getting off the train, us and about 15 other people were having some difficulty finding the campsite... so we wandered around for about 20 minutes looking before someone eventually found it on a map and we were able to head in the right direction. When we got the camp, it was almost as I imagined it, although I was unaware that it was known to be a "party" camp so there was a big tent for dancing, food, and drinks right there. Since it was only 11 a.m., of course there were people drinking.. what else would they be doing? After check-in, we put of stuff in the tent, got changed, and decided to head to Okterberfest! Finally! Some of our other friends had been there since 9 a.m that morning. So needless to say, we were a little bit behind. We caught the train back into the city and found ourselves coming up the escalator to the funnest looking fair I have ever seen. Like the Del Mar Fair times one hundred. There were tents for all different types of food, rides, games, and best of all, the infamous beer tents. :) Since I had only eaten a pretzel all day, I decided to try a "hot dog", German style. Oddly enough, it was like a hotdog in a hamburger bun.. which was strange but pretty good. After that we decided to try and get into one of the beer tents to see the madness first hand. I am sure you have all seen the movies like BeerFest, heck, maybe you have even been to Oktoberfest before. But for those of you who haven't.. I will do my best to describe my initial reaction. First, when we finally push our way into the tent, all you can see are tables just jam-packed with people. Second, you see the steins. A stein is that huge "glass" that beer comes in but it holds a whole liter of beer. Everyone in the tent has at least one in their hands at all times. Most of the people in the tent (Hofbrauhaus) were either standing on the tables, or about to be. I have never seen anything like it. Randomly, we ran into a girl from our program and since she had a table, we decided to sit with her. You can only order a beer if you are "sitting" at a table. So you can't be walking around a expect to order a beer. Anyway, as a our first tent of the day, I am happy to say that it was my favorite when I look back on the whole experience. After that tent, we walked to another to find some friends, and then another after that, and another. Then, we thought it would be fun to go on a carnival ride. Let me tell you... twenty times scarier than normal... Couldn't believe that we all made it through alive. Around 7 we grabbed dinner, and decided to head back camp. When we got back, there was party starting in the main tent but we were all pretty tired. Ana and I headed to bathroom to wash our faces and low and behold, there was no hot water! Just the beginning of a very cold, showerless weekend. We we headed back to the tent, (we were staying with Matt and Jordan, two guys from Gonzaga) we realized just how COLD it was going to be. Ana and I both bought our very compact sleeping bags. [Shout out the the Knudsens for that one :) ] but alas, the tent was way colder than we thought. We decided to go to bed early so that we could get up early on Saturday. Unfortunately, you could literally feel the music coming from the main tent through the ground. But we were all pretty exhausted and fell asleep fast. The sleeping arrangements went as follows... Jordan, Matt, Ana, and Me. I had NO IDEA just how cold being on the outside of the tent would be. Around 3 a.m. [music still going at the party tent] I woke up freezy. I think I may have accidentally woke everyone else up with my teeth chattering so, like the gentleman he is, Matt offered to switch with me and go on the outside. Which would have made more sense initially because he had a better sleeping bag.. but oh well. The middle was probably 15 degrees warmer than the outside spot. We feel back asleep until 6 when Ana and I decided to get up and actually take a shower.
Saturday: We got all of our stuff and headed to the girl's bathroom. Although there was no hot water the night before in the sinks, we saw steam coming from the shower. But when we got inside, there was absolutely NO hot water AT ALL. Oh, and icing on the cake, the showers all had about 6 inches of water in them, collected from the poor souls before us who decided to brave the cold and take showers. Ana, a much braver woman than I, got in the ice bath and WASHED HER HAIR! I could barely bring myself to dip a toe in the water, much less dunk my head in it! I chickened out and just attempted at washing my body. Its really nice to go from a freezing night's sleep to an ice cold shower.. I live the life of a queen. Anyway, after that whole ordeal, I got out, shiver-dried off, and proceeded to get dressed. Unfortunately, the whole bathroom was flooded at this point. Guess who proceeds to drop all her clothes in the messy, dirty, wet floor of the public bathroom? I DO. I literally dropped everything except my pants and my jacket. So guess who had to wear those back to the tent and change there? I DID. Yes, I assume you are all imagining this vividly and chuckling to yourselves. And at the time, that's all I could do too. I laughed. Just my luck. So, not the best start to my day, but I made it work. After that whole situation was over, we went to the main tent and bought some crappy food for breakfast. For everything you purchased from the tent, you had to give them a down payment for the utensils! So strange. Anyway, we headed to Oktoberfest around 9 and half of us found a table in the Paulaner Tent. The other half got a table outside at another tent across the way. We drank a stein at the Paulaner and ate a pretzel then made our to find the other group at their outdoor beer garden tent. At that point in the morning, everything was already PACKED so just finding a table for everyone was a challenge. Around 12, a bunch of these Croatian guys asked a guy at our table if he would order then 6 steins for 80 euro, basically tipping him 20, because they wanted drinks but since you can only order if you have a table, they asked him to do it for them. Matt's mistake... we quickly found our table being taken over by a bunch of rowdy soccer referees from Croatia. To sum up my experience with them, let's just say that I will NOT be going to Croatia anytime soon to find a husband.. they were quite vulgar. I do not think one of them possessed a filter on the stream of thoughts running through their heads. I was privileged enough to hear all of them. At one point, Jordan and I left to get some ice cream because we needed a break from the sun/ the Croatians. But when we tried to get back into the beer garden, the guards would not let us! We tried every entrance to the tent but no one would give in. Finally, we were able to distract a guard and we snuck in under the rope and got back to the table. After that, everyone decided that they had been hanging out long enough, and we made a group decision to head home to get changed and then find a place to eat dinner downtown. Of course all the restaurants in all or Munich, we settle for an Italian food restaurant. Of course. But at that point, I was so hungry I didn't even care. Some people in the group wanted to go out after that, but the majority of us were too tired, so we just decided to head back to the freezing cold campsite and go to bed. We had to check out by 11 a.m. in the morning, and we wanted to hang out in Munich a little bit before we had to catch our buses back at 3.
Sunday: After another super comfortable night in the tent, except this time we got smart and put our extra blankets down first for more insulation, we got up around 8, packed up, and headed to the train station to catch a train to Dachau, the concentration camp just outside Munich. I was really excited to go to there because I have read so many books about the holocaust, but I've never visited the scene of where it happened. We got to Dachau around 1130 and walked around for a couple hours. I have never been so close to so much tragedy before. It was astounding to me how anybody survived there. Truly. I felt like such a baby for complaining about being "cold" in my clothes, sleeping bag, and tent. Holocaust victims were forced to stand shoeless, clothless, and hungry in the dead of winter outside for hours. And sometimes, they were forced to walk from camp to camp through the snow. Seeing the "living" quarters and barracks were also astounding. But the part that affected me the most was seeing the gas chamber and the ovens. I could not believe how many lives were ended in those rooms alone, a murder factory. There was even such a great demand for the first crematorium, they had to build a second, bigger one with more ovens and more killing capacity. The fact that humans, just like you and me, were putting other humans into ovens is a mind blowing thought in itself. I think about how fortunate I am; not being born during that time and place, because my family probably would have also been lost in the horror as well. And to the survivors, wow. Just simply unbelievable that anyone could have survived. They are ALL heroes. And should be examples for just how strong we are, and can be when faced with difficulty. Anyway, ending with Dachau was not the happiest thing we could have done that day, but it was definitely the most meaningful. I am so glad that I went. After that, we all piled back onto the bus, and then back onto the 8 hour bus ride home. I watched about 3 movies during that time and attempted at sleeping, but to no avail. We got back to Florence around midnight and Tommaso picked me up from the train station.
So there, in somewhat of a nutshell, was Oktoberfest 2011 for me. I hope you all enjoyed my story :)
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