This will be the second time I have been to Munich, the first time being two years previous when I came for Oktoberfest during a trip to Switzerland that happened to be during Oktoberfest time.  During that time Marc was there and introduced me to his Friend Jasmine, who lives in Munich.  So Marc and I returned two years later to hang out with Jasmine and experience Oktoberfest once again.  We landed, took the train to the main station and Jasmine was waiting there for us with open arms!

This time around we were fortunate to have a few other friends joining the festivities from Canada and we wasted no time heading to a German style dinner at one of the local Breweries who have a giant festhaul out back which is almost as crazy as going to the fest grounds themselves.

We had a wonderful German dinner with some great friends and great beer.  There were a few really crazy tables that were fun to watch as long as the beer spilling stayed on the other side of the room.

We had a super fun Canadian group assembled!

That first night was a bit more chill and Marc and I ended up just visiting with Jasmine and catching up with what she’d been up to!  It was a lot of fun.

The next day was THE DAY at Oktoberfest.  The theresienwiese opens at 10am and on most days, if you don’t make it into a tent shortly after that, you aren’t going to find a table and in order to get served in most tents, you have to have a seat.  Therefore we adorned out Leaseholder and headed to the festival grounds nice and early in the morning.

How did I get my Leiderhosen you might ask?  Well this is where last December and Marc the carrier mule comes in.  I knew I wanted to take this trip a few months before leaving and this is when Marc and I decided we were going to meet up in Munich for Oktoberfest. So, when I returned home from California at Christmas, I brought my Leiderhosen with me and then brought them to Marc’s new years party and told him to bring them to Munich somehow, 9 months later.  This was a team effort, because Marc was making a few stops on his travels before arriving in Munich and didn’t want to carry them all over the place.  So he got our friend Trevor to bring them who was jsut coming to Germany and was planning on bringing slightly more luggage than Marc.  Therefore on that first night at Dinner, Trevor delivered my Leiderhosen which I had left at Marc’s house 9 months before.  It was a team effort and I am for sure grateful I have nice friends.  How did Marc get his??? He left them in Munich for 2 years and Jasmine even moved places and moved them for him.  Talk about good friends!

Anywayys I digress.

We ended up at the Paulaner tent which is one of the few that has a standing area where you can get served without having a seat at a table.  Everything was packed already and there were no tables in site.  So we made the best of it and just kept our eyes out for people leaving after a few hours.

We got a table eventually!

Eventually the entire tent was up on their chairs and spirits were high.

Marc and I did a much better job of pacing ourselves this year and by about 4:00pm we decided it was time to go to our most favorite event on the festival grounds!
THE DEVIL’S WHEEL!!!!!!!!!

can you sense my excitement?

So this was introduced to us last time by Jasmine and Marc and I made it a point that we had to return.  It is one of the midway tents and you pay a small ammount for entrance and then you can either watch or even participate.   It is essentially a giant wheel that spins in the middle.  The announcer will call a group of people such as “anyone wearing a Durndel” and then anyone wearing a Durndel would go up and try and jocky for position on the wheel.  It would start to spin and the goal is to stay on for as long as possible.  It was a little more difficult for us because all of the announcements were in German, so when it was time to go up, we were always a bit behind.

They mix it up so there are multiple age groups, and different random assortments of people.  The most violent and crazy as when you get the 18+ males on there.  It’s basically a giant pile of people all lying on each other and jockying for position.  I guess that’s why I ended up with several cuts, scrapes and bruises after spending a few hours here.  If a smaller group of people are still on the wheel after a while, they drop down this huge plush ball nd try and knock you off.  Eventually they throw a rope in there too to try and knock you off.  It’s is very entertaining and would never be a thing in North America as fights would most likely break out and the liability is huge.

Anyways, Marc and I spent a long time there and got decently cut up and bruised, but it was totally worth it.

After we were too tired to continue, I made contact with some of my friends from California that were also at Oktoberfest with one of their running groups.  They said to come on by to their table and so we tried to figure out how we were going to get in, since all of the tents were more or less at capacity and they weren’t letting anyone else in.  We figured we would jsut wait in line and hope they evebtually let another group of people in as people leave.  We only had to wait 30 minutes or so before we were let in.  We had a solid round 2 evening and ended up closing down the festival at 10pm.  12 hours of Oktoberfesting was a little aggressive, but we had a good time!

The next day it was Sunday and therefore it was a requirement to get weisswurst which is a boiled white sausage, pretzels and beer! A great way to spend a Sunday morning but you have to arrive before noon or they will probably stop serving it.  I didn’t take and photos this time apparently.  So You can have the aftermath photo in front of city hall!

Marc was trying to make the most of his european travels and was actually leaving already.  So we said farewell and I decided to stick around and hang with Jasmine for a bit which included a stop at one of my favorite places in Munich.  The public beer garden in the middle of the city called Viktualienmarkt.  It is run by the city and serves the cheapest beer you will probably find in Munich.  They rotate between the 6 Munich based breweries and beer comes in half or full liter sizes.

It is outdoors and super chill.  One of  my favorite beer gardens in the world.

We walked around and enjoyed the sites of Munich and the beautiful weather before heading back for some chill.

That evening I went for a run in the park near Jasmine’s place which is right near the BMW offices.  It was a nice park with a hill in the middle with a great view of the countryside and city.

Every large German city needs a tower like this apparently.  Also you can see the famous BMW building in the mid ground.

After my run, I headed back into the city centre to meet up with a few German’s I had met in Cambodia in Kampot.  They were Ivan’s friends and were the ones who came on the Island with us. The Blog post is HERE:

Alex, Jerry and Monika met up for dinner at a typical Bavarian place where I decided on the pork knuckle.

It was super cool to see some people you met in Cambodia in their natural habitat.

After dinner we headed to a local bar where it was apparently prime time football time in the states because the place had all of the NFL games on and it was packed with fans.  I got to see the Bills lose.

It wasn’t a late night but we had a lot of fun!

The next day was Monday, so Jasmine had to go to school (she’s a teacher) and suggested that I come to school and help teach an English lesson.  We did English class and then 2 music classes which was super fun.  The younger class asked a lot of questions about me and my travels and some of them wanted autographs from me at the end of class.  It was very cute and very enjoyable.  I stuck around until lunch and then headed back to Jasmine’s as half a day at school was enough for me.

Meanwhile, I was in Contact with my friend Adrian who was a member of the scooter crew in Laos.  He was just starting school in a nearby town and wanted to meet up for a night at Oktoberfest.  It ended up not being as local as I thought, but he took the 1.5 hour train ride regardless just to meet me!

While I was waiting for him at the gate, I noticed that there was a ride in the midway near the entrance that kept getting a decent crowd.  So i wandered over to take a look.  It was called The tobaggan and it was basically a fast moving conveyor belt on an angle that brought riders up to the top where they would then slide down a slide.  However, the fun part of the ride was the conveyor belt.  I watched so many people, fall down, stumble and ride up the conveyor belt on their butts.  Add in the alcohol that was probably in many of their bloodstreams and things got really funny.  There were helpers there that would help some of the older people and women when they wanted the help.

I watched that for at least 15 minutes and will probably try it myself if I ever return to Oktoberfest.

Eventually Adrian arrived and we oktoberfested for a few hours before he had to head home.

The next day was Jasmine’s favorite day at Oktoberfest.  The principle sends a note home to the parents telling them that it is only a half day of school and then the teachers all go to Oktoberfest at the more traditional area.  You have to pay 2 euros to access this area but this is where most of the older locals go and it is a lot more tame and the dancing is better and you get to drink out of cool stone cups.

I went to teachers day last time as well and some of the teachers recognized me from last time.  It was very chill and a lot of fun!

Jasmine’s boyfriend was coming into town for a few days and so I wanted to give them privacy and therefore decided to take the train out to Salzburg Austria where I spent a few days exploring, before returning to Munich.  I didn’t really do much in Munich when I returned, just hung with Jasmine and was soon off to Nuremberg which was the bigger city near Bamberg which was my next beer adventure plan.

Thanks for the hospitality Jasmine!