Along that alcohol trend...3 of us headed to Oktoberfest in September...yes, you’d think it’d be in October but those Germans have a funny way of naming things! Lol.
When I was handed the pieces of A4 paper covered in small print which listed all the universities I could go on exchange to, I decided that I wanted to be on the mainland of Europe so I could easily travel everywhere. This was my first international train ride, and it was a lot of fun! Everyone on the train was headed to the Festival, so there was a jolly atmosphere of people already carting cartons of beer on to the train for the night journey.
When we arrived at Munich train station, we were already struck by almost EVERYONE dressed in traditional German dress. It was great!!! We first headed to our campsite...yes, it was very cold but a lot of fun! It was set in the old equestrian stadium from the 1976 Olympics, with literally hundreds of tents...which FROZE over night!!!!
We made our way to the Oktoberfest which was much bigger than I expected. There were maybe 10 tents, each which sit 6000 people, and have beer gardens out the front. By the time we got there at midday, there were no seats in the tents, so we made our way to a beer garden. There are also food stalls, merchandise stores, rides, and more. It was like an alcoholic Easter Show!
It’s a really funny (and alarmingly unhealthy!!) system inside the Oktoberfest tents (where we got a spot the next day because we arrived around 8.30am!). You have to be seated in order to get beer, and these ladies dressed in traditional clothing, come around carrying like ten huge steins (litre glasses of beer), and food. You just pay as you go. So literally, you sit in one place and eat pretzels, pork knuckles and apple strudel while drinking literally litres of beer for about 13 hours!!!
(Inside a beer tent)
It was a lot of fun though, and you get to meet a tonne of people. Three months from then, and I’m still in contact with some of the people we shared a table with on that day. If you’re in Europe in September, GO!!