This entire 48-hour Oktoberfest trip could be summed up as the craziest, weirdest, most exciting adventure I have even been on. I signed up for this trip not really knowing what was going to happen, what was involved, or who was going, but in the end I would definitely go again in a heartbeat!
To start off, the only information we were given about the trip beforehand is that we were taking an overnight party-train to Munich Wednesday, spending the full Thursday there, and then taking the same party train back that night to arrive back in Vienna Friday morning. A quick and easy trip, right? Sort of... The first thing I did was sign up for who we wanted to be in the sleeping cabins with for the overnight train. My friends Alan, Kyle, Will and I automatically put our names in because we all basically signed up for the trip together as well. That meant that there would be two random people staying with us since there were six per cabin. This could have gone horribly wrong but we got paired with Chris and Salina, both from Hong Kong, and they are some really awesome people! We got so lucky to be randomly paired with these guys, and we hung out with them for about the full 48 hours together at Oktoberfest. After arriving on the train and making our introductions, we all headed to the front of the train to the "Party Bus" because the night was still young. After a while of drinking, dancing, getting alcohol spilled on you because open drinks and a fast curving train don't mix well, we all decided that we really wanted some sleep before we spend the day in Munich. That didn't happen. At all. While the few number of cabins that held people who actually wanted to be well-rested before the next day's festivities, the rest of the 100 other occupants decided that if they didn't want to sleep, the entire train wouldn't sleep either. There was non-stop banging on the walls, people screaming out the windows, and running up and down the halls. I went outside to check what was going on because fights were breaking out along with chanting, and apparently people were rioting the occupants that wanted to sleep. I got about maybe an hour of sleep because I am a very light sleeper. That goes for the rest of us in our cabin, except for Kyle who slept like a deceased rock (we all hate him for it).
Anyway, after that eventful night we arrived in Munich around 8am and had some free time to spend before the gates to Oktoberfest opened. Everyone in our cabin decided to spend the day together and we also met up with a friend of ours, Julio, who I met on our trip to Bratislava to get our Visas. The first picture above, in order, goes (Kyle, Chris, me, Salina, Will, Alan, Julio). The seven of us went to a breakfast place called Mr. Pancake and got exactly what the name suggests... After we ate we visited a bit of the city including Neues Rathaus, Karlstor, Stachus, and the shopping street in between them all. Friends of mine that have been to Munich say that it really isn't any different than Vienna, and I really got that feeling while I was there as well. It didn't feel any different than back home.
After quite a bit of exploring we meandered to the Oktoberfest fairgrounds and went to our reserved Beer Tent Löwenbräu-Festhall. It was a massive two-story tent filled with tables with an elevated band in the middle. We spent a few hours there drinking our free liters and half chickens just chatting and observing the people and scenery around us. The atmosphere is awesome because everyone there is having a great time, singing and dancing with their family or friends not giving a care in the world. One thing I didn't expect about Oktoberfest is the large amount of carnival rides and games that they have scattered around the fairgrounds. Both my parents have been to Oktoberfest and they mentioned roller coasters, but in my mind I pictured a few rickety, small coasters in the back of the festival. I was so wrong because there could easily be 100+ rides and games among the 14 beer tents. And of course I had to take advantage of them. I haven't been to an Amusement park in quite a long time and I love roller coasters. We all played bumper cars, and Chris and I were the only people interested in actual roller coasters so we went on a few. We finished up our adrenaline rush with another trip back to our tent for more drinks and some Munich White Sausages. We spent a lot of time this time observing all the other people there. At this point in the day there were more drunk people and we had a great laugh making fun of all the people who were wasted and passing out.
After all this we had spent around 6 hours at Oktoberfest so we decided to check out one more place in the city and then find dinner. Right across the street from the fairgrounds was St. Paul's Cathedral where we got to climb up a million stairs to the top and see over the whole city. It was a beautiful site! At this point we were so hungry and our feet hurt so bad that we just found one of the closest places to eat and parked it there for a while: LeDu Happy Dumplings. So we finished off a German Festival with some amazing Chinese food!! We still had two hours before our train picked us up again so we wandered around the shopping street we went to earlier, and had some ice cream at McDonalds, then fell asleep in the train station (well, I fell asleep). When our train arrived we all made a bee-line for our cabin, shut the doors and all got in bed. We were exhausted and our feet hurt like crazy. Luckily on our train back most people were in the same boat, so it was a much calmer and quieter ride home.
I think Oktoberfest is something everyone should experience at least once because it is SUCH a fun time to experience with friends and family. And even if you don't drink there is still tons of stuff you can do. I'm so glad I went, and I really hope I get the opportunity to go again in the future!