Oktoberfest Part 3 - Alone and Confused

The third part of Oktoberfest was by far the craziest. My best mate Mike came to visit for Oktoberfest, having just broken up with his girlfriend he was well up for a lads party week, and trust me, it didn't disappoint! He came quite late in the evening, which was quite lucky because the guys from part 2 had left the day before and my apartment was a mess! I took the opportunity to clean up and also replace the bandage on my broken hand.

He got in at around 9, so we only had time to get some takeaway and some booze and an early (ish) night to get ready for Oktoberfest in the morning!

Mike did not really know what to expect for Oktoberfest, he thought it would be more like a fair, with fabric tents instead of lots of structures that look actually permanent but still get taken down after the festival. He was surprised to see the the tents were like buildings and that there was a full blown amusement park. The first thing you see is the huge Ferris Wheel in the middle of the field. Because of how big it was we decided to make that out meeting point in case we got separated. That is important for later.

The first morning we were in the Hofbräu-Festzelt, with the 6-6.5% Hofbräu Oktoberfest beer. Similar to my previous Oktoberfest posts, we drank them quite quick, clearly I didn't learn from the time I broke my finger...

Sometime during our third maß we met some fun characters, including "The Future!". Here are the videos of some of them downing their maß:

It's not included in the video, but "The Future" puked up all that beer only a few seconds after, and the WHOLE Festzelt was laughing. Incredible scenes.

We also met some quite sexy ladies, although stupidly only got one picture.

Mike doesn't even remember this part - explains what happened later

A little while later it all went blank, neither of us have any idea how it happened, but we got separated. When I realised I went to the meeting point, the Ferris Wheel, can't miss it, right?

There I waited for around an hour, constantly calling Mike's number. One of the messages I wrote went like:

"Mike you **** answer your ****ing phone! Now I look like a dick because I can't hang up"

No idea.

This is a text that Mike sent me that night:

Notice the timestamp on the text.19:14, by this point Mike was lost for about 2 hours! Means we were pissed out of our minds by 5 in the afternoon! We don't know what happened, but there are several theories, but I'm pretty sure he got kicked out of the tent and went to and left the meeting point earlier than when I got there. Either that or he passed out and got there after I waited there for an hour...

He found my place eventually, the buzzer woke me up because I was being an amazing friend and having a nap... He explained that someone drove him home after he got in a little kerfuffle with a jealous German. Then we went for Chinese food, Mike kept on telling the waitress that he spoke German. The only words he said to her in German were "Guten Tag", and said in a funny way, like he was Dutch... I couldn't stop laughing.

With the first of our adventures finished I decided we would have a tourist day, and wander around Munich's landmarks. This is Mike getting to first base with a large stone lion...

The next day was another Oktoberfest day, and after 4 maß of beer we were joined by my friends Adi and Kai. After not too long Mike was drunk again:

After a couple more I caught up with him in drunkenness, and thought it would be a good idea that we go to another bar to sample a different Oktoberfest beer. Try and paint a mental map, this bar is exactly half way home and less than 10 minutes from home. I thought, what could go wrong?

I was left alone and confused again.

Somehow we got separated again, and this time he lost his phone, so we had no hope. At that point there is a gap in both our memories, but he eventually made it back. Once again I proved how good a friend I am and was woken up when he rang the buzzer...

Comments and Questions welcome, not that I can answer many! Read Mike's blog at Mind of Lavidius

Viel Spaß homies!

Oktoberfest Part 2 - Uni Reunion!

Part 2 of Oktoberfest took place (just) after I had the operation on my broken finger, which was a direct result of the first part of Oktoberfest, I was excited to go back!

As it happened the day after I had the operation my 4 housemates from 3rd year of Uni (and one friend that I never lived with) came together to Munich for a reunion, the first for about 18 months. It was a chance to show them Munich and also to experience Oktoberfest, which I hadn't done myself much either!

So, introductions then.

The guy sitting down on the left is Dickie, he didn't live with us in Lincoln but we know him through Matt, standing just behind him. In the middle of the shot is the Ginger, wait, I mean Chris. The handsome guy to Chris' left is me. Left of me is Holly and in front of here is Sarah. So that's the gang! Spaß was had!

We started by going to the Augustiner Keller Biergarten, where they all had their first look at a maß:

The Keller doesn't have it's own blog  post, but it has a really nice beer garden and also a really cool beer hall and even a basement restaurant, one will be written in due course.

The guys sampled such Bavarian delights as Schweinshaxe, Hendl, Knödl and Currywurst, Brezen etc. The first 2 litres of beer went down quickly, we were all amazed how quickly Sarah would drink her litres! Next we walked across town to my favourite spot to show my friends, the Hofbräuhaus for the Hofbräu Oktoberfest beer, sausages and Brotzeit (kind of like a picnic). I don't really know how many beers we had in total there but we were all pretty drunk and still had to get up early to go to Oktoberfest early in the morning!

When we got to Oktoberfest I wanted to show the guys the atmosphere in the tent, really lively with the music playing and people standing up and downing the whole maß! Unfortunately the tents we tried were full, so we decided to drink outside in the beer garden of the "Himmel Der Bayern" (Heaven of Bavaria) of the Hacker brewery. I think it was so hot that all the beer we drank we sweated out! Here's me and Chris, I'm showing off my thumbs up skills with wearing a cast.

I can't really remember what we did the rest if the day, I guess more beer was involved, which is known to cause gaps in your memory. See here for a perfect example!

The next day we were back at Oktoberfest, and this time made it into a tent. We went for the Augustiner fish tent (can't remember the name), but it had some great fish! Matt was the only one to get some, but it was basically a whole fish weighing about 350g (but costing €20!). Here he is giving the fish a kiss.

And here's all of us in the tent :)

It was really good to see the guys again, I thought it would be difficult with me having moved to Germany, but the guys were so cool to come visit me here! I hope for many more reunions next year :). I'm definitely going to book a table for 10 for next year's Oktoberfest! Any takers for a spot?

Viel Spaß homies

Quick Maß counter update (edited)

To be honest I don't really know how many maß of beer I had during the Oktoberfest period, but considering I hosted a reunion with my university friends and my best mate came down and we got paralytic (literally) twice I am saying I had 20 litres. Although in reality it is probably more. So the new score is 42 Maß! -->

Update: I went once more to the Oktoberfest and had another 4 maß, much fun!

Viel Spaß homies!

Oktoberfest Day 1 (Bierleichen)

One of the biggest attractions to me starting my life in Munich was of course the possibility to live near the worlds biggest beer festival and party. This is now my first Oktoberfest, and I was and am so excited!

The Oktoberfest starts with the tapping of the keg at 12 noon, but if you try to get there around or just before that, then there is absolutely no chance you'll get a seat! It's for that reason I met my friend Alex at 8:30 so we can get into one of the big tents as soon as they open. Even then it was difficult but we found a nice spot in the Paulaner Winzerer Fähndl (big) tent. The problem is that means you are waiting in a beer tent for 3 hours before you  have your first beer. Hence the other guys didn't look that excited:

The party and the atmosphere started kicking up around 11:30, and then the brass band started walking around the hall playing some Bavarian drinking songs. Then the owner of the tent took a microphone and started talking and counting down the seconds to 12 from 45 seconds! That was a bit boring.


The first beer was served at 12, but we didn't get ours for another 40 minutes. Once it arrived the mood got really good. I drank mine a little faster than I should, causing problems later in the day (more on that later). The Paulaner Oktoberfest beer was quite nice, but too Lagery for my tastes, does the job though at 6.5% alcohol!

The mood improved a lot when the beer arrived

Inside the tent was really nice, the people were nice. I'll put it this way, there was a lot of eye candy everywhere!

And on to the name of this post (Bierleichen). It is a term used by Germans, or experienced Oktoberfest visitors, it means "Beer Corpses". It refers to the youngsters that don't realise the strength of the beer, get too drunk and pass out. While technically this didn't happen to me it kinda did. On the way home I either tripped, slipped or plain fell and broke my finger! It needs an operation and everything, my first visit to Oktoberfest!

The last 2 posts have been typed one handed because of this lol, but anyway it was so fun, and can't wait to get back there! 


Viel spaß homies!

Michaeligarten

This Michaeligarten is a beer garden in Ostpark, right by a Lake. On an evening after work it is a really great place to be!

So what drove me to go to a beer garden after work when I had to work the next morning also? Well, my colleague Gyula found a new apartment for his family after a stressful 3 months of searching, congrats again! He went to meet his friends and invited me to join.

It's a Löwenbraü beer garden which makes a nice change because most of the others I have been to have been Augustiner or Hofbraü. I like the beer, both the Wießbier and Dunkel are very good, and the price is OK (€7,40 per maß)

Fans of Bavarian food (and portions!) won't be going wanting here! I had a big portion of ribs and a nice spicy BBQ sauce, good times!

We saw one of the funniest things I have ever seen, a baby trying to drink from a maß!

I'm thinking of cycling somewhere this weekend, so my cycling sabbatical is over! Then i'll post about another beer hall.

Viel Spaß homies!

Not a normal Thursday night

I always think the best things come when you are least expecting them, that definitely happened on Thursday.

My original plan was to leave work a little earlier than usual and catch up with the backlog of housework (which is still yet to be done!). Then my friend Adi texted me saying they were going to Paulaner am Nockherberg, this got me really excited because it is near the end of the "Starkbierfest" and that place would be wild!

Starkbierfest in Germany is the festival of the strong beer, usually hitting around 8% abv and boy after even one maß you can feel it! I think Erik Orrgårde can vouch for just how strong they are. Oh a maß is a litre, here is what the glasses look like :)

So I met the gang from the Euro Youth Hostel (where I stayed for 2 months before finding my apartment) and we went to the Paulaner am Nockerberg by Tram. The first thing I thought was "Wow, I feel stupid NOT wearing Lederhosen!" The traditional garb of choice for Germans was everywhere to be seen and the girls came in their Dirndlns... This is us going in (there are no pics of us coming out!).

Se we went in to the beer garden and had our first Maß of Salvator, which is the Paulaner breweries Starkbier. I think it is my favourite Starkbier that I have tried because it does not have an overpowering strong taste, it is really quite drinkable for a 7.9% beer and then things started going down hill!

Exactly when we crossed the point of being regularly drunk to pissed off our arses I have no idea it wasn't long before we were inside and dancing on the tables.

Me and Adi made a prost which is the German "Cheers!" and one of us must have clinged the classes too hard because this happened.

The next thing I knew Adi (the one with the broken glass) was so drink she was falling over, and when you mix that with DANCING ON THE TABLE things inevitably went wrong. On the table behind us there was a guy that looked liked Dr Evil, he was definitely a very scary looking man. Adi didn't realise it but one time when she fell over dancing on the table she knocked over Dr Evil's beer and then he looked not only scary but furious to boot.

He slammed his empty glass down on our table and gave Adi the (DR) evil eye, and what did she do, just stared at him very blankly then carried on dancing. About half an hour later he came back for more but all he got that time was Adi's middle finger. I don't remember seeing him for a while after because Adi kept falling over and ROFLing which was just too funny. Me and Dr Evil did have one more encounter, as he was storming off he barged me in the shoulder. Slightly disoriented I turned around and waved.

In short that was a brilliant evening, and so after nearly 3 litres of Starkbeir I went home and the next morning gave my presentation at work.