London:
London was great because we both got a little taste of home. We spent our first day with my dad (he was on a business trip in London) sightseeing and going on a "jog" around Buckingham Palace. Besides getting to stay at a nice hotel, wear comfy white bath robes and be treated to a good meal (and get to see my dad of course), a highlight for us was the Tower of London. After reading so many historical fiction books on Henry VIII, we thought it was so cool to see where he lived and where Anne Bolyn was beheaded (wow, that sounds really morbid). We also go to see Westminister Abbey which was pretty amazing. Everything about London was very cultured and cool (minus the fact that everything is super expensive!). The other short days we were in the city we spent with Laura's cousin and her family in Notting Hill. Notting Hill was gorgeous and really cute, just like in the movie. Laura's cousin and her family were so good to us- it was hard to leave but we had to head off to Germany.
Berlin:
We arrived in Berlin on Tuesday night and made it to our hostel which for some reason was called Green Eggs and Ham. After spending the night in the smallest bed we have had yet to share, the first thing we did was take the train across the city to what is known as the East Side Gallery. Basically it is a portion of the Berlin wall, extending about a kilometer, that has been preserved and painted by people all over the world with images regarding the separation of East and West Berlin, the destruction of the wall, etc. We walked up and down the street for a good hour looking at the murals and took a ton of pictures. We also visited the location of Checkpoint Charlie, and though there isn't much left of it, a memorial has been constructed that describes the history behind the wall, the Cold War, and the eventual resolution when the Americans finally left Berlin.
Other than that, Meghan and I spent our two days in Berlin just walking around the city and taking in the sights. The city has amazing architecture and has a very modern feel to it, and we were constantly impressed with the efficiency of the Germans. Fast speed trains were always whizzing around, everyone spoke English perfectly, and the city streets were immaculate. The Germans were also extremely friendly and always willing to help when we had questions, and for the first time Meghan and I felt like we fit in with the population, as people frequently assumed we were from Germany and would come up and speak to us in German. It was a nice change from the weird stares we had grown accustomed to receiving while travelling around Eastern Europe.
OKTOBERFEST:
Day 1-
We rolled up to Munich after a turbulent flight. Meghan was looking somewhat terrified by the time we finally landed (she's not exactly a fan of flying and didn't take her Xanax...I tried to be supportive and not giggle at her continuous grabs at the seat in front of her), and the first thing she said to me was, "I need a drink."
After checking into our hotel and dropping off our bags, we headed to the festival at about 1pm. Five minutes after arriving we were completely overwhelmed and at a bit at a loss of how to proceed. We walked into the first tent we saw and were immediately overpowered by the polka music, Germans dressed in lederhosen standing on tables singing, and beer wenches screaming at us at the top of their lungs (kinda scary) to move out of the way as they made their way to tables with six gigantic mugs of beer stacked on top one another (which takes an impressive amount of strength). We wandered around for a bit, looking for a table at which to sit, as you don't get beer unless you are at a table. Finally some Italian guy snatched us up as he walked by and led us to his table, where we squeezed in and finally got a taste of our first beer at Oktoberfest. Conversation lacked as they didn't speak English, but after a few minutes we were kicked out of our spot anyway by people who had planned ahead and reserved the table (sometimes I realize how much it would help if Meg and I were planners). So we wandered around for a bit, finishing our mugs and making random converstation here and there, until we came across a table of old Dannish men who let us squeeze in with them. The beer wenches were busy at this point and nowhere to be seen, so being the classy ladies that we are, we dumped the remanents of beer from various mugs that had been left by previous seat occupiers into our own cups. Free beer! Sweet. Things start to go downhill from there. We both remember standing on the table, swinging our mugs back and forth and clanking them with those of others while exclaiming "Probst!" in between verses of "Que sara, sara." After that its a little hazy (apparently the beer at Oktoberfest is considerably more alcoholic than regular beer. Who knew?)
After some more beer and singing, we emerged from the tent and decided to try out some rides. We hit up the rollercoaster, the swings (our favorite) and some spinny ride that made us extremely nauseous. So we nixed the rides and spent some time eating ice cream and huge gingerbread heart-shaped cookies that people liked to wear as necklaces. We were both still very drunk and Meghan began complaining that her feet were freezing (it had been raining all day and neither of us had the sense to bring an umbrella), so we headed back to the hotel. At 8pm. I watched TV while Meghan went to shower, and after about half hour I started to get a little concerned that she was still in the bathroom. I yelled at her from my bed just to make sure she was still alive, and I eventually got the muffled response that she was cool, she had decided to take a bath to warm up and she passed out. Winner. By that time it was 8:30pm and we both decided to "rest" aka we both fell asleep and woke up at 2am completely wired because we had been asleep for the last 6 hours. We did a little recap, trying to piece together the events of the day, and at 3am decided the best thing would probably be to try to sleep so the hours until we could do Oktoberfest all over again would go by faster.
Day 2 :
We had two rules for ourselves on Saturday:#1. Drink slowly (remember childhood story of tortoise and hare- slow and steady is better)
#2. avoid all italians (i.e stay away from creepy men and stay near to hot german men who can beat up creepy italian men)
what happennned: we ended up sitting in the italian section of the beer tent, laura had to dance with a creepy italian dude, we were hammered by 11am, took a "power nap" in the mud, rode on almost every ride in the park, ate way too many giant pretzels and german sausage, and lasted all the way to night. success. The day goes as follows:
We wake up feeling suprisingly well rested and ready to give it another go. Oktoberfest might have killed us on Friday (as we were unprepared and inexperienced), but now we were really and truly ready. After a hearty breakfast of eggs and coffee, we hopped on the metro and rode out to the festival. Lucky for us, the sun was shining and, although it was only 10am, the beer tents were already packed. We made our way to the front of the line and snuck in only to be pulled aside by a german security guard. Laura and I look at eachother like, "crap, do they remember us from yesterday and won't allow us back in their tent?". Oh no, don't worry...they just wanted our ID's because we look UNDER THE AGE OF 17. we didn't see them card anyone else, we couldn't believe it!
Anyways, once we got in the tent we wandered around trying to find a table we could squeeze into. It proved difficult as there were SO many people already there. All of a sudden, this cute, little man invited us to sit at their table as they had some space. We were desperate for a beer by this point (you can only order a beer if you are seated at a table) so we thankfully sat down with them. Sure enough, only one of them speaks english (and very little at that) and of course, they are italian. Furthermore, everyone in the area is Italian. and not just Italian, but men (ok, i dont want anyone to think we dont like italians...its just that italian men that we have met through our travels have all been super intense and really agressive). We had no idea what they kept talking about so we focused on our beer consumption. Several giant, cold mugs of beer, 2 jumbo pretzels and a few dances with random italians later, we staggered out of the tent into daylight. This part of the day is a bit hazey...please refer to pictures on the side of the blog to understand. We spent the afternoon riding rides and eating ice cream. and obviously, having a ball.
Soon the alcohol and rollercoaster rides caught up to us and Laura turned to me with red eyes and a slightly nauseous expression on her face and simply stated, "Meg, I need a quick rest". I nodded in agreement and we headed towards some grass/a bench outside one of the beer tents. Unable to get comfortable on the bench, Laura and I noticed that there were a few people "napping" on the muddy grass. They looked very content (probably were passed out) and we became jealous. Thinking at the time that it would be totally acceptable to nap on the disgusting ground at oktoberfest, I gave Laura the thumbs up for her to sleep while I performed "lookout duty" on the nearby bench. Genius idea, we know (again, good thing we have college degrees so that we can come up with these great ideas). Well, she fell asleep really fast and a few random men came by and tried to take a picture of her...not to worry, i scared them off by yelling and throwing pretzels pieces at them. Soon I had company on the bench in the form of an old, german man who kept laughing at Laura and I. He wouldn't stop talking to me in german despite me continuously telling him I didn't understand. Finally, he pointed to the grass next to Laura and showed me that he would lookout for us. So, I went and layed down next to Laura in the grass for a little rest, only to be woken up about 15 minutes later by some dude taking another picture of us and the old man on the bench crying because he was laughing so hard. Laura and I quickly ran away with a few leaves in our hair but felt rejuvenated after our "nap".
The evening we spent drinking more beer, riding more rides, eating more german food and being fully entertained. Eventually we pooped out and headed home around 10pm-fully proud of ourselves for having lasted so long. It was a fabulous day/night and 2 days of Oktoberfesting was just enough for us. We aren't sure if we could have lasted another day and still be alive.
We are now back in Ireland, working, hanging out, doing irish stuff. Its nice to be back.
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