Thursday, January 26, 2012

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.

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