I met up with a mate of mine, Oli, at the Munich airport. He was arriving from London, as he had just finished his Master's only a few weeks before. We had landed in the morning, and had the rest of the day to explore. That day we decided not to head to the Theresienwiese ('Wiesen'), the large grounds where Oktoberfest is held. Instead we went to the hallowed Augustiner Bräu restaurant (the oldest independently owned brewery in Munich). There, we had the still in-season Augustiner WeissBier - one sip of that golden nectar cured any sign of jet-lag I may have been suffering (or so I'd like to believe). Along with our beer we indulged in some Pork knuckle. Ah the Pork-knuckle..... I think I may have eaten Pork knuckle 3 times during our 3 day stay! It's roasted until golden and crispy and braised in beer! What's not to love!?!?
The following day we headed early to the Wiesen. We got there around 10:30, still trying to recover from the previous night at the hostel where we had a few more litres of beer than we had planned. We moseyed over to the HofBräuhaus 'tent' eager to get ourselves a spot at the infamous HofBräuhaus and try a HofBräu Oktoberfest beer. Oli was struggling and needed a gigantic pretzel to kick the effects of the previous night. The crowd started to get boisterous towards 2pm. By this time the band was in full swing, regularly blasting:
"Ein Prosicht", "Alice", "Seven Nation Army" by White Stripes and our favorite - Fliegerlied (So ein schöner tag). Before long, the alcohol had reduced inhibitions and people were making friends all around us.
Out of the blue a girl approached myself and Oli, she started to talk to me with the usual banter, in hindsight I realized her speech was a bit slurred. I didn't think too much of it at the time, after all this was the largest drinking festival in the world!!! When I found out that she was from London, I was like "Oh my friend (pointing to Oli) is from London. She didn't even bother to look toward him. Within a matter of seconds after she asks, "Can I ask you an inappropriate question?". Hesitantly, " Ummm... sure. What's up?". "Do you have any cocaine?". To which, I was dumbfounded, I recall saying something to the affect "I'm sorry, but you're barking up the wrong tree". Before I knew it she had left as soon as she had come over. I was gobsmacked, and all Oli and I could do was laugh and have another litre of HofBräuhaus' finest. We ended up finishing 6 Stein's (litres) that night and were able to amble our way back to the hostel without too much incident.
The following day we ended up spending the most time at the HofBräuhaus tent again. Mostly because it was the biggest and it had an international feel to it. We did go by the Späten tent and the Hippodrome, which were both good too. We were able to meet up with some of Oli's friends from grad school, and some of my friends from California, who unplanned, had turned up at Munich. Thank god for Oli, if it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't have made it back to the hostel that second night! Yeah, it was that epic!! 7 Steins is not a joke people!!!
We woke up the next morning feeling the worst we had felt throughout the past 3 days. We were on our way to Prague. Having booked a direct train we were looking forward to catching up on sleep/beating our hangovers!
I was in and out of sleep, Oli was reading a book - all of a sudden during a stop near the border I realized that everyone in our carriage had got off. I thought this was rather peculiar and even said so to Oli. Neither of us took it too seriously as we thought this may be a popular stop. The train started to move, yet, I was still unsettled. Moments pass by, and I see an Engineer (he had an orange vest on) come through to our carriage. I think we looked at each other and simultaneously uttered some cuss words, his were in German. Suffice to say we were no longer on our way to Prague, rather the depot at that station. The train had split up and we were lucky enough to be in the two carriages that were being sent to the depot. In the end, what was a direct train turned out to be a 5 connection passage to Prague - in some cases we only had 2 minutes between trains! In the end this added a good 3 hours to our journey time as well. Hangover gone!
No sleep, but definitely a good story.
Munich is probably one of my favorite cities in Europe - in spite of getting asked for cocaine at the Wiesen. Definitely plan on going back! Pork knuckle and Weissbier; until we meet again!
More to come hope you guys enjoyed the first installment. Bear with me as I perfect this Blogging thing.
Also keep in mind this blog will skip around my travels as I have stories from years ago that will be shared at random times.
Cheers or Prost, until my next post!
Sorry to say the pork knuckle kinda looks like an STD. Welcome to the blogosphere cuz!
ReplyDeleteHahaha. Thx
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