Just got back from Oktober Fest in Munich last night. It was an amazing weekend!
Matt and I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday morning to catch a 6:45 plane. We were excited the night before so we didn’t actually get to bed until 11 or 12, so at this point we had only had about 5 hours of sleep.
We arrived to the airport around 5:30 and there were already girls at the bar dressed in their Trachten outfits laughing and having some beers. It blew me away, my eyes were still half shut and these girls were already drinking… This gave me an idea of what Oktober Fest was going to be like.
We arrived to the fairground around 9:15 am and found the tent we had a reservation for. Our friends were waiting for us in line already and right when we walked up the security guards gave us a little hassle but then let us in. Apparently you aren’t supposed to get into the tent with reservations until 12:00, but a guy knew a guy who knew a guy, so we got in earlier.
By 9:30 we had out first mass served to us. For all of you who, like me before Oktober Fest, don’t know what a mass is – it is a 1 litre glass of beer. At this point, I had barely woken up and couldn’t quite muster the stomach to drink a whole litre of beer. I got a Raddler instead which is the beer mixed with Sprite.
We were in the tent from 9:30am – 10 pm. There was a typical german band playing old classics to swing your beer around and yell too and they also played newer tunes that you could dance to. I had the opportunity to show a girl how to swing dance. Apparently it blew her mind (maybe she drank to much beer or I spun her around to much, or a combination on both), because after the dance she was like, ”I HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT BEFORE!”
It was a real fun day. The whole day was based around my two favourite activities, dancing and singing.
Sunday we had an awesome breakfast and went to Church in Munich’s Dom, St. Michaels. Pope Benedict was an Archbishop there before he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Later that day while checking out an even more beautiful church, I forget it’s name, I was able to hit confession with a priest that could speak 7 languages. It was beautiful. Within this church were some of the remains of Cosmos & Damien, whose feast day was last Satuday, the day before we visited. Their intersession was great throughout the day.
Sunday night we stopped at the Hofbräuhaus and had dinner. The place is crazy. It has about 2000 seats I would say and it is packed 365 days a year. If you want to experience a taste of Oktober Fest, I would say this is the place.
Munich is a beautiful city. I had not been there in about 10 years, so it was great to expereince the wonderful city again. It is as Bavarian as you can get, so we took advantage of eating as much meat as we could. That being said, I won’t be eating meat for another month…
I will throw some pictures up in the gallery sometime soon.
Sep 29, 2009 @ 13:03:42
Just got back from Oktober Fest in Munich last night. It was an amazing weekend!
Matt and I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday morning to catch a 6:45 plane. We were excited the night before so we didn’t actually get to bed until 11 or 12, so at this point we had only had about 5 hours of sleep.
We arrived to the airport around 5:30 and there were already girls at the bar dressed in their Trachten outfits laughing and having some beers. It blew me away, my eyes were still half shut and these girls were already drinking… This gave me an idea of what Oktober Fest was going to be like.
We arrived to the fairground around 9:15 am and found the tent we had a reservation for. Our friends were waiting for us in line already and right when we walked up the security guards gave us a little hassle but then let us in. Apparently you aren’t supposed to get into the tent with reservations until 12:00, but a guy knew a guy who knew a guy, so we got in earlier.
By 9:30 we had out first mass served to us. For all of you who, like me before Oktober Fest, don’t know what a mass is – it is a 1 litre glass of beer. At this point, I had barely woken up and couldn’t quite muster the stomach to drink a whole litre of beer. I got a Raddler instead which is the beer mixed with Sprite.
We were in the tent from 9:30am – 10 pm. There was a typical german band playing old classics to swing your beer around and yell too and they also played newer tunes that you could dance to. I had the opportunity to show a girl how to swing dance. Apparently it blew her mind (maybe she drank to much beer or I spun her around to much, or a combination on both), because after the dance she was like, ”I HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT BEFORE!”
It was a real fun day. The whole day was based around my two favourite activities, dancing and singing.
Sunday we had an awesome breakfast and went to Church in Munich’s Dom, St. Michaels. Pope Benedict was an Archbishop there before he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Later that day while checking out an even more beautiful church, I forget it’s name, I was able to hit confession with a priest that could speak 7 languages. It was beautiful. Within this church were some of the remains of Cosmos & Damien, whose feast day was last Satuday, the day before we visited. Their intersession was great throughout the day.
Sunday night we stopped at the Hofbräuhaus and had dinner. The place is crazy. It has about 2000 seats I would say and it is packed 365 days a year. If you want to experience a taste of Oktober Fest, I would say this is the place.
Munich is a beautiful city. I had not been there in about 10 years, so it was great to expereince the wonderful city again. It is as Bavarian as you can get, so we took advantage of eating as much meat as we could. That being said, I won’t be eating meat for another month…
I will throw some pictures up in the gallery sometime soon.
Sep 30, 2009 @ 08:20:41
Just uploaded the pics. Check them out here (http://picasaweb.google.com/Andrew.T.Leonard/OktoberFestMunchen#) !