Oktoberfest 2011

When the opportunity arose for me to experience Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany last fall the obvious answer was "hell yes!" What follows is a recount of what I can remember from that insane weekend and the moments that made riding 600 miles in a minivan with 6 other people worth every minute.

My trip to Oktoberfest hadn't started well. My mind the week leading up to the trip was steeped in confusion brought about by demands made upon me to learn a new language, culture and school system essentially on the fly, while my friends and peers appeared to be completely content and mentally and emotionally adapted and frequently bragging about it. To them I must have looked haggard and stripped, unable to comprehend exactly what they had already, and what they deemed old hat. So there I was on Thursday night, unpacked and unprepared for a trip that was fast approaching. I decided to, that night, throw what minimal clothes I had into a bag, as well as a Ziploc full of toiletries. I also decided that I would have exactly two hours after class and before departure where I could 1. eat dinner 2. shop for food and 3. Finish packing.

5pm rolled around the next day and I was already drained from my exhaustive French class. I caught the metro back to my apartment, sweating and coughing the whole way, (I was just getting over a cold, a result of late nights and stress). I got home, threw down my school bag, and threw the rest of my dry t-shirts into my half-packed backpack. I left promptly for the supermarket where I bought croissants, water and wine for the road in case the others would be so inclined to get a buzz going on our cross-boarder redeye burn to Munich.

I arrived just in time to find the others waiting for me. I introduced myself to the others who I hadn't met yet. In order of height, ranging from shortest to tallest, there were 1. Allison 2. Chelsea 3. Me 4. Greg 5. Peter 6. Bryan A. 7. Laura. We piled in the van and set course for the highway. Getting on the freeway incited a sense of expectation and buzzing excitement that carried us towards Germany and didn't die down until the last leg of our return trip home.

We drove all night, or should I say Peter drove and we tried to sleep. We stopped about 3 times, most of which were results of bogus directions from our temperamental Tom Tom. We got lost, drove on the wrong side of the road, and thought at one point, while on an all-but-abandoned side street, we were to be the victims in a low-budget teen horror movie plot. Long story short we got out of that cliché plotline and arrived in Munich during the twilight hour of dawn, when everything is cast in a purple light that makes some people sleepy and other charged with sheer possibility. We checked into "The Tent," a 150-person tent with bunk beds that was to be our temporary home. Price of admission was thin mattress, a rusty locker and three shabby blankets that held a dank mustiness inherent in all ancient camping equipment. We all visited the bathroom to wash our faces, brush our teeth, and prepare for the day. Greg and Peter couldn't be bothered to make their beds, and so they fell asleep in the car. We left them behind and at 6am started off for Oktoberfest.

We stopped briefly at a discothèque coffeeshop, where dancing baristas made us Americanos before taking our money and shoving us back onto the street towards beer and tents. We knew we were on the right course when we started seeing men in Lederhosen and women in those tantalizing traditional dresses. We joined the river of people that ran towards the arches of the fairgrounds where we snapped 100's of pictures of ourselves. We're American, what'd they expect? We entered with the rest and stepped into another mob waiting at the entrance of one of the drinking tents, the name of which has since slipped my mind because of its length and Germanness. After 2 hours of waiting they opened the doors and let us in, everyone but me I should say. I was turned away because I had a backpack and backpacks weren't allowed. I ducked out of line and went to find a locker. All the lockers in the metro station were occupied, and the event locker booth wasn't open until 11. So I milled about the grounds and snapped pictures of people. I ate for a waffle at 10:30 and listened to people speaking German. The booth was open when I returned so I paid 2 euro and the woman gave me a little slip of pink paper.

I went back to the tent where they let me waltz inside to look for my friends. I was immediately hit with the noise of the place. 10,000 people all singing and cheering and talking at once, incredible. I found my friends who had conveniently placed themselves at the end of a long table shared by a group of lederhosen 30-year-olds. I introduced myself and they taught us the prost! and Einse! Fie! Drie! Soufa! cheers for drinking German beer.

There began a big scene with a band and flags and drumming and all the Germans at our table stood and started clapping with excited for the beer that was sure to come. After the brewmeister and his wife made a quick speech there was a chorus of a traditional German drinking song. Everyone joined in and I mouthed the words and with the final clash of the cymbal the buzz of excitement went from a general rumbling to a full fledged earthquake and the tent exploded with voices and yelling and genuine German cheer.

Thanks to the wizened knowledge of our German counterparts we were the first table to receive beer. In a few short minutes each of us had a pitcher of cold, fresh-from-the-tap Paulaner sitting before us. The smell alone was enough to set our taste buds humming and the first gulp was as refreshing as the first rain after a Savanna dry season. We all made quick work of the first liter, and the Germans were nice enough to buy the second round. I had already started to feel the effects of the first when another pitcher was placed in front of me. My bladder was full to bursting so I made to leave, but was stopped by one of the Germans who said I had to wait till I was finished with my second to go, otherwise I'd be peeing all afternoon. I looked at the stein in front of me and considered my bladder and said it was simply impossible. He replied saying I should at least drink till the level was below the first handle. He didn't have to tell me twice. I chugged till the first handle and stood up to go. Jumping down from the bench I felt my bladder like a 10 lbs. weight. I walked like a pregnant woman to the bathroom where like the lifting of the floodgates of Hoover Dam I relieved myself for an uninterrupted 5 minutes.

After the second stein it was time to order food. We were all pretty sloshed by this point, and negotiating prices with our German waitress was an impossibility I couldn't begin to understand. Luckily our German counterparts saved the day again, we pointed to the dishes we wanted and they translated it to the waitress. After 20 minutes a plate of homemade turkey and fries was before me, must love German food.

The food did little to sober me up and after the second pitcher a well-to-do German gentleman from the table next to us bought another round. At this point we were well past the point of intoxicated, but it would have been rude to refuse, and so my companions and I started and finished with hardly a recollection of how or why.

All too soon it was time to go. We had been in the tent for 8 hours, steadily drinking beer for 6. We bid our new German friends farewell, but before I knew it my friends were gone. Poof! Just like that, they disappeared. The following series of events are tilted and blurred, but I remember I shook the hand of the man who bought the beer, he asked me a question which I must have answered affirmatively because he smiled and patted me on the back. I then stumbled in and out of the tent looking for my friends for 10 minutes, but not finding them I decided the next place I should look was under the Ferris wheel. So I walked the half mile to the Ferris wheel, very drunk and stumbling, in essence looking very German. To my surprise they weren't there. Shocking! The wheels of my mind started turning slowly, as if they were stuck in mud, and I decided to walk back to the entrance of the fairgrounds. I found my group there waiting for me and asking what had happened, and I tried unsuccessfully to explain to them I had gotten lost and went to look for them in the "most logical" spot I could think of. They laughed at me, and we hitched a train back to "The Tent."

Back at "The Tent" I hardly felt any better, and I was crashing from the Red Bull I drank before going into the tent 8 hours earlier. So with a pre-hangover hangover coupled with the caffeine crash, I felt like lying down for a minute or two. When I got to my bed, however, I found it occupied by kid who was dozing away using one of my blankets as a pillow. With as much articulation and cordiality I could muster given my situation I woke him up and said, "Hey man, that's like my bed." He stumbled off no doubt in search for someone else's bed he could momentarily slumber in. I crashed on my "pillow" and within 5 minutes was dozing from pure mental and physical exhaustion.

Thus concludes the first day, which was a whirlwind. A magically blurred dream that I most likely wouldn't be convinced had occurred had I not my camera and the hundreds of photos I took while hammered with German hospitality. All in all the weekend boils down to a handful of specific moment. The few and fleeting minutes where I was absolutely spellbound and enchanted by something so alien and enthusiastic.

One of these moments came after coming out of the bathroom after my 5-minute piss. The band had started playing traditional German songs, the beer was working its charm and it hit me that I was in Munich at Oktoberfest with a handful of friends, 1000's of miles away from home with nothing but a stein and a hat to my name. I watched the German conductor wield his hands like an air traffic controller, and I listened as the orchestra belted out German classics. I returned to the table where the Germans had stood up and were signing without hesitation, while the heads of various animals lined the walls of the tent. I looked at the tables full of cheerful people simple there to drink and be merry and back in the gloriousness of being German and drinking German beer.

The spell of Oktoberfest with its heavy foods and sugar treats, with its crazy costumes and Bavarian warmth fell upon me like the first glows of a sunrise. I felt as though a massive German mistress was holding open her arms to receive me, and momentarily comfort me. And I folded myself into those arms and into the loud, boisterous, fattened, lubricated atmosphere of an Oktoberfest drinking tent.

Lyon update

Hi all, first and foremost I would like to appologize, I certainly haven't been keeping up to date on my promise of posting while here in France, which changes now. For those who don't know, I've been in France since Aug 27 2011. I lived with a French woman named Francoise and her two cats, (one of which has a twitter: @TheCatNoah). She cooked for me and cleaned, and her apartment was cozy and warm and I certainly do miss it. During my stay a Corsican girl came to live with us, her name was Christelle. She was 27, and studying to become a card dealer in a casino. I have since moved into a shared duplex apartment with a fellow student. Places I've visited so far have been Beaujolais, France; Oktoberfest, Munich, German; Paris; Barcelona, Spain; Zermatt, Switzerland; Monoco; Nice; Avignon. I was studying business at ESDES, a French management school, whose IBP program was an excellent way to meet people from across the globe including: France, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Canada, the UK, The Netherlands, Norway, Mexico, Ireland, China and South Korea. To make sure we mixed, they would have parties every weekend, and what I lacked in learning I gained in scar tissue on my liver. That's a joke, but we did thoroughly experience the Lyon nightlife. For those of you who have been wondering, I have not found a French girlfriend, as they tend to be difficult to approach and the language barrier is sometimes too great. Those are my excuses so far, and if you think of more I'd greatly appreciate hearing them. I'm not fluent, as I thought I would be by now, but have improved greatly. The school I went to was English speaking with a class in French, but staying with Francoise made it easier for me to practice as she would correct me on my many mistakes. I have not been writing as much as I thought I would, the evidence is the lack of blogposts since my arrival. I have instead begun focusing on a pragmatic approach to life that can be synonomous with that age-old adage "growing up." I do feel older since I've been here. I've been faced with many problems and much diversity, of which I had to overcome on my own, thus developing character faster than ever before. I have been reading an awful lot, even though the subjects have varied from those of a little less than a year ago. I'm reading the King James Bible right now to understand the religious mind, but I'm halfway through it and a solution hasn't presented itself yet. I haven't been writing as much as I thought I was going to, evidence of which is the lack of blogposts. I have taken a much different course with my studies, reserving writing as a Sunday passion similar to that of a Baseball player or a filmbuff. I realize I can use my well-developed gifts to benefit the greater good while also ensuring financial stability. If you're are wondering what this is please contact me personally, I don't want to bore the greater good by writing anything more than what is necessary in this blogpost. That being said I will continue posting the backlog of memories I've dogeared for their entertaining value and importance of insight into my experience so far. I'd like to begin with a poem that explains my first impressions of Lyon:

Lyon-
Heavy and Succulent,
Luminous and Proper,
The Fourviere sits like icing.
Brilliant and Absurd,
At citycenter a nougat,
Washed away by bridled rivers.

People-
Indifferent and Traditional,
Interested and Modern,
Speak of topics more and less trivial.
Exclusive and Conditional,
They are cast in a strange iron,
Flabby yet firm.

Men-
Feminine and Conceited,
Receptive and Distant,
Ringing wolves with learned competence.
Soleful and Slighting,
Their act finds rest in
Dirty nightclubs and moonlight.

Women-
Pristine and Innocent,
Dutiful and Innovative,
Live in reflection and proportion.
Aware and Aloof,
Revelations of banality,
Leave them passionately blase.

We look at it and see ourselves,
Small physical tolls are,
Grand emotional scissors,
Cut ribbons inside.

Perpetually misunderstood,
Wish-washed preconceptions,
They ask questions,
Out of bad taste.

Watching silverly and stern,
Loose at the mouth,
But cunning eyes,
Deceive the honest.

Momentary marriages,
Rushes of desire,
They pass by and by,
and leave me in bliss.

Check back regularly for more posts.