Maastricht, Munich and Oktoberfest!

Well where to begin!? Oktoberfest was absolutely amazing and I am so glad that I was able to experience that insane festival. But let me do the story-telling with some sort of chronological order =)

So Thursday, the first of the month (I can NOT believe it is already October) I headed out of Paris, yet again, for an adventure. I was off to Maastricht, NL to meet up with my very good friend Stephanie. I arrived pretty late that night so we just went out with a few of her friends so I could get a feel of the Maastricht bar scene. The next morning we ran errands before we had to be at the train station to catch the bus that would bring us to Aachen, Germany, where we would meet up with everyone else and get our rental car. ROAD TRIP!

We ended up getting, what some might call, a small bus lol. It was a Volkswagen Transporter…felt very European. There were 7 of us in the car, but we could have easily fit three more. Ben and Maja (Maya in English) were our lovely drivers who safely transported us on the autobahn, where we reached speeds of 120-180 kph (you do the conversion, freaks me out too much to know how fast we were actually going- there is no speed limit in Germany). In the back of the van were Myles, Hanne, Harm, Stephanie, and myself. The ride was okay despite the 8-hour drive, but when we arrived to our camping site, the greeting we received in the main tent of 20 drunk and scantily dressed men screaming German drinking songs while stomping on tables made everything alright. My description did no justice to what I saw that morning at 2am haha. So after we checked in, we decided to try and get some sleep, seeing as how the plan was to get up in 3.5 hours and be to the tents at Oktoberfest at 7am.

Yeah Right.

After waking up late- at 6:00 am (lol) we managed to finally arrive at the glorious festival grounds of Oktoberfest at 7:30 am. The subway ride over there was insane. Hundreds of people were dressed in lederhosen, the typical Bavarian attire that Germans and tourists alike wear around Munich for the 3-week festival. Not to mention that about 85% of the people were chugging beer too! So when we arrive on the scene, it looks like a giant carnival! It’s really amazing. There are tents everywhere, which calling them tents is kind of deceiving because you don’t really get the idea of how massive they are. Our tent, which was called “Schüten Festzelt” has the reputation of being the best tent at the festival. Unfortunately the reason that we were supposed to arrive at the tent at 7am was because we were not lucky enough to have made reservations- reservations sold out in February of last year =) SOO we waited in line with like 400 hundred other people to try and get one of the unreserved tables. Luckily we made it in and were able to get a table, but only allowed to stay there until 12:15pm and when I heard that the only thing I thought was POWER DRINK. It was 9am and 9 liters of beer arrived at our table, you bet we were happy. Our group in the tent was Stephanie, Ben, Harm, Myles, Lieka, Philip, Heiner, Esther and myself. These are all Stephanie’s friends from UCM. Shortly after the beers arrived, the “breakfast” was served. The breakfast was a typical white Bavarian sausage and a pretzel. This was the strangest combination of food to eat at 9 am, but I could not think of anything that could have tasted better.

I would estimate that there were about 500+ people inside our tent/exhibition-hall thing, and everyone was chanting, singing and screaming with joy. Finally the music started, and for me that was the foam on the beer, the mustard on the bratwurst, the icing on the cake! (The salt on the pretzel…okay I will stop) It completed the ambiance for me and really made the experience that much more amazing.

After 2 liters of beer, 1 sausage, 1 pretzel, and 1 delicious cheesy-ham-bread-thing, it was 12:30 pm and we had to evacuate the building so the jerks with reservations could drink themselves into oblivion (unfair). After that, we were all feeling amazing, and we decided to walk to this beautiful park called the English Gardens, to hit up the beer garden there, and continue the festivities.

30 minutes of walking later, when we arrived at the park, the only thing each and every one of us managed to do was find a patch of grass that was in the shade and collapse to the ground. We napped in that park for 3 hours, and it was the best nap and worst nap I have ever had. The best nap, because when I woke up I was rejuvenated and surrounded by nature in a beautiful park, and the worst nap because I woke up to an old, naked man walking around next to me. I guess Germany is liberal.

The next day was devoted to exploring the beautiful city of Munich, and what a beautiful city it is! This was my first time ever coming to Germany, and I am so glad that Munich was my icebreaker. It is a typical cosmopolitan European city. I was really fascinated with the Germans, who are way too cool, seriously. I think maybe a new obsession may have started. The architecture was beautiful, the shopping district looked fabulous (the one Saturday we are there, it was a national holiday so everything was closed and you don’t honestly think Europeans work on Sunday do you, hahaha). The cathedrals were stunning and the subway system rocked. We climbed to the top of this bell tower and go to see the most stunning 360-degree view of the city, and literally had probably the best weather anyone could have asked for. I’m not sure that I saw enough of the touristy things that one should see when in Munich, but honestly I feel that for a two day trip, I got a great feel for the city and most definitely loved it.

That night, Ben made reservations for us to eat at a restaurant that served typical German and Bavarian food. It was so freaking delicious. Lets just say that Bavarian cuisine has three staple items: meat, bread, and potatoes. Sausage, wiener schnitzel, half-roasted chickens, roasted fish, currywourst, pommes, country potatoes, and my personal favorite “the breast from a male cow whose balls have been removed” (this was the translation from Maja about an item on the menu that we could not read…I thought it was pretty funny). I ordered the typical wiener schnitzel (pork pounded really flat, breaded, and then pan-fried) with pommes (fries) and a beer. It was delicious. After the dinner, we were all pretty tired so we retired to the camping site to get sleep before our journey back to Maastricht.

Overall, this trip was really amazing and was my first trip thus far, in which I have been introduced to new places!! Maastricht, although I was there for 24 hours, seemed like a really cute town and I am going to return so I can ride the entire city by bike (slowly getting over my fear of bikes). The trip to Munich has really sparked my interest in seeing more of Germany, and I really want to go back to Munich if the chance arises!

Tomorrow is my first day of class! I am so excited, and I am even more exited that I was able to go on this amazing adventure before my classes begin and life gets crazy. I think I have officially put a cap on my summer-time séjours and opened the door for autumn’s adventures to come in – which we all know there will be.

Here is a link to check out all of my picture, enjoy =)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2247240&id=6717335&l=2ce6c8cc62