Another thing on my Europe bucket-list: not just the largest beer festival in the world, but the largest fair altogether - OKTOBERFEST. Allana and I booked to go for Munich's 2013 Closing Weekend. Held since 1810, around 6 MILLION people visit over the 16/17 day festival each year, 6 main breweries and over 7 million litres of beer poured - with one little issue for me: I don't drink beer.
So I booked with the tour company Fanatics - for a 3 night hostel stay - and Allana booked for the same but with Top Deck. Basically we needed the accommodation that the tour companies were offering, because we left it too late to book and everywhere had either sold out, or was extortionate pricing. So £300 for 3nights in a hostel (although a COMPLETE ripoff) was what we had to fork out.
But, about 1 month before our Oktoberfest trip - I got an unexpected email..
The 'Thirsty Swagman' himself - Kenneth - had emailed me to advise that I had won the Thirsty Swagman facebook competition, for a 12 night, €2500, 4-5* Europe trip. What-the-f*ck. I didn't believe it - so I had a quick google of the tour company, and true enough, Thirsty Swagman was owned and run by a guy called Kenneth, and the tour I'd won looked AMAZING. Oktoberfest, Maria Alm (Austria), Prague, Bamberg, and Dusseldorf. One catch though - the trip INCLUDED Oktoberfest, but on different dates to what I'd already booked and paid for (the tour started IN Munich on the Wednesday before the closing weekend).. Luckily - Ken was a gem, and told me that if I could find another FEMALE to take the first half of the tour, I could meet them in Prague (missing out on Maria Alm) after my Oktoberfest weekend. Otherwise, I'd have to give up my €2500 spot on the tour. My issue - I'd only been in London for like 3 months, and didn't know any ladies that could take it. Long story short, through a friend - I met Sam, aka Shoogs. This lady was a blessing in disguise in more ways than one, and is now one of my close friends. Shoogs was stoked, and flew out to Munich on the Wednesday. I was to fly out on the Friday eve, when the Thirsty Swagman tour was headed for Maria Alm.
Lans and I landed late on the Friday so we went straight to bed in our bunkbedded dorms.. All we knew was that we had to be ready and downstairs by 7am, to walk over to the Oktoberfest tents. They open at 9am, and if you're not one of the first in the tent, goodluck getting a table. I met the other girls from the Fanatics tour, all Aussie or Kiwi - great bunch! Most living in London, others on the usual Aussie trip around Europe. We figured we'd team up and get a table as close to the stage as possible (because the centre of the tent usually hosts a stage platform where the band for the day will perform). The tent doors opened, and OH MY... Everyone gushes in like it's the Boxing Day sales and there's only 1 x 50inch TV left.. It was unreal.
We got a table, and started getting our first order ready for the Kellner/Kellnerin (waiter/waitress) - we'd been told to ALWAYS TIP the first round. So each stein (1litre) of beer is officially something like €9.10, which means you will always pay a flat €10 at the least. BUT, if you want good service throughout the day, pay at LEAST €20 for your first stein, and he/she will be loyal to your table. Otherwise, you might find yourself waiting a while for each round of beer. These guys & gals work off tips only, and they work HARD (carrying 7 FULL steins in one arm is standard). Anyway, after ordering my first (and only) full stein, and shouting 'Prost' (cheers) about 6 times, it all began - and I managed to finish that stein. Not actually bad at all! but the beer is STRONG, so it'll be Radlers for me (half beer / half lemonade) for the rest of the weekend.
I don't really know how to put into words the atmosphere inside the tents. When you think about it, it's a bunch of strangers sitting in giant tents drinking beer and singing songs -for about 12 hours - could get boring right? WRONG. It's so much more than that. Everyone's trading stories, trying to learn words in eachother's languages and songs in german, yelling 'prost' a thousand times, cheers-ing as hard as possible each time.. And the Band - incredible. Kept us entertained throughout the day with their german songs, oldies like 'Country Road' or 'Heyyyyyyy, hey baby, ooh, ahh, I wanna knowwww, if you'll be my girl'. Then - out of nowhere, late afternoon, the last thing you expected out of the traditional german band that could be easily made up of retired old men - starts busting out songs like 'Avicii - Wake me up' - a huge crowd pleaser - which ends up being our anthem for the weekend.
The bouncers/security guards had one rule - no skulling/downing your steins. If you do, they throw you out. I only saw a few people try it, and they were both thrown out. As the day goes on, you understand why - because people get messier and messier, a few scuffles and arguments here and there - but for majority of the day, it's an incredible HAPPY place. Another one of those tips we'd had for Oktoberfest, was to make sure that you get out of the tent at some point, and explore the festival site. So we escaped the mayhem in the tents for a couple of hours, and got exploring. The place surrounding the tents reminded me of the Perth Royal Show .. Think rides, stalls, games, food.. The girls from my hostel room and I all ventured into the Fun-Haus. Think of a clown's obstacle course with spinning cylinders and rickety bridges and mirrors etc. We came out bruised, but smiling.
That night was interesting - I'd managed to have a kip on my stein glass for about 20 minutes around 2pm - which didn't phase the guys on our table, cause they kept 'prost-ing' as hard as they could with their steins above my head, which of course ended in some shattered glass, a near-fistycuffs between Allana and one my hostel roommates (neither knew that the other was trying to make sure my head wasnt impaled), a few drunken arguments around us, and by about 9pm I was ready for out. So I stumbled back to the hostel room, where one of the chics was having (loud) sex in the bathroom with the tourguide, while her 'we met while travelling so let's see where this goes' boyfriend was knocking on our door asking where she was. Awks..
Now, that the LAST day (the Sunday) would be the busiest day, so we were told - DON'T leave your tent unless you plan on leaving for good, or lining up for a while to get back in (once the tent is full, it's a 1-in, 1-out system). Surprisingly with minimal hangover, we headed down to the tents. Very much the same as the first day, but this time instead of taking a nap on my stein, I took a nap on the barrier between the tables and the walkway :P Still only 20 mins, and it perked me up for the rest of the day. By 8ish Allana and I were starving (and not willing to pay €20+ for a pork knuckle in the tent, so we escaped the tent to the carnival site, found some corn-on-the-cob, wandered to a restaurant for the best pork knuckle (for half the price), and stumbled back to the hostel.
All in all - the whole experience was amazing, but I wish I'd been more of a beer drinker at the time (I'm now converted) because the beer bloaty belly and carb overload wasnt fun by each evening.
I somehow, managed a run on the Monday morning (literally 15 minutes in the freezing cold but better than nothing!), packed up, said goodbye to Lans, and headed to the Munich Central station to catch my 4/5hour bus to Prague. En route to see Shoogs, the Thirsty Swagman, and my 4 to 5* accommodation.
✌
