Oktoberfest - Jessica, Suzy, Denise, Victor, Kimberly and Margaret
After a great trip to Oktoberfest in Munich Germany in 2003 I decided to go back once again. This year instead of going solo, I went with three co-workers, Jessica, Victor and Suzy and met up with Margaret and Denise who took the train in from Zurich.
The night train from Brussels was not too bad on the way there. We got into Hamburg in the wee hours of the morning and then caught an Intercity train to Munich.
We dumped our bags into lockers at the train station and headed over to the fair grounds. After searching high and low for Denise and Margaret while playing phone tag - 'Okay we are here...where are you?' we managed to rendez-vous. We wandered looking for a place to sit and eventually managed to squeeze our way into a table....sympathy is always a good way to get seated....did I fail to mention that I have been hobbling around on crutches for three weeks? Even on crutches I could not pass up Oktoberfest so I hobbled around gaining lots of sympathy - makes a good conversation starter!
We sat outside all day in the gorgeous sun shine drinking one or two (very modest I am being) beers and sharing numerous pretzels and chickens. As we were not inside a tent, the day was rather tame, and so we headed off to the hotel around 10 ready to sleep and meet again at 9 am to get a table (sounded like a great plan....at least when you are all drunk it sounds good!).
Well, Sunday dawned and myself and Jessica (we were sharing a hotel room) managed to get up and down to breakfast by 8:45ish...we were already running late but almost on schedule. While eating we received a text from Victor and Suzy that they were not going be making it. Okay, half the group gone...we should check on Margaret and Denise's status. Well, they were running even later so we agreed to meet up a bit later in the day so Jessica and myself took our time with breakfast and headed back to Oktoberfest (once again dropping the luggage at the train station).
After my great experience in the HB tent last year there was no other option but to head there! We found a table with several Australians who were living in London. Denise and Margaret strolled in with their Coke Lights in hand a few hours later. Being social creatures we made friends with the tables around us and eventually moved to talk to them when the Australians were kicked out for fighting (really bad). I introduced Denise to a really nice guy from Texas and introduced myself to a really nice guy from Italy (Thats him to the left in the Chicago City Panther T-Shirt).
We managed to leave on time to just make it to the train station where Jessica realized that one of the Australians had stolen her locker key from her bag. Panicking she managed to find a train worker to open the locker and we grabbed the bags and made it to the train just in time!
The train to Hanover was uneventful. Once there we headed to the Burger King in the train station (Why can't Belgium have BK instead of Mickey D's?) where my request for a #2 Whopper Meal with Cheese became two cheesburgers. The night train was not a lot of fun - the train conductor seemed to like slamming on the breaks at regular frequecies - I felt several times like I was going to fall off the bunk!
The outcome of the weekend was more good memories, two glasses (one I let Jessica have as I already own one, now two) and plenty of pictures! Here are a few of them - enjoy!