The First Night

I have just had the most amazing past couple of days. First of all, I just want to apologize for not being able to get otu and post earlier. The computer at our first hotel in Munich was all messed up and wouldn't let me log on to BlogSpot for some reason. Whatever.

So the first night, we arrive in Munich a little bit late thanks to some wonderful Air Canada stupidity. Some "maintenance" problem in Toronto caused us to missed our connector. We were then forced to run around the Frankfurt airport in search of our connecting flight. It was all well and good to do some running at 4am Toronto time to wake us up. The uncool part was getting felt up by the overzealous securitz guards at the Frankfurt airport. A word to the wise ... they dont just frisk. They grope.

So anyways, due to our late arrival we kind of miss any chance of catching the ceremony where the mayor taps the first keg. The truth of the matter is that we probably wouldn't have made it in that tent anyways. I was talking to a guy from Vegas and he was saying that he got to the tent at 8am and had trouble getting in. They dont even serve beer until noon! These Germans are crazy eager.

The rest of the day went like this - (1) checked into the hotel, (2) ate McDonald's ... we're so adventurous for our first meal, (3) buy huge bottles of water for when we stumble back to the hotel, (4) go to the Oktoberfest grounds.

The Oktoberfest grounds are CRAZY!!! It was utter insanity the amount of people there. And there's not just drinking tents. It's actually more like an amusement park with rides, midway and copious amounts of booze. Booyeah. There is one or two huge rows that have the beer tents on them, then another row that is stricktly non-beer alcohol. Like schnapps. Or champagne. Or wine. Who the hell goes to Oktoberfest and drinks wine?

So there are thousands of people in the tents, thousands waiting outside of the tents to get in (it is opening day) and we're kind of bummed because we have gone around to a couple tents and dont even know the protocol on how we get in. That and some Germans are really rude and pushy when they want booze. So we're standing outside the Paulager tent when our new friend Jason gets approached by some random dude asking if we want to get in. Jason drop his line pretending he works for Playboy magazine and we are in. It was like going from famine to feast!

Honestly, when we walked into the tent, it was surreal! It was humid as hell, so when you walk in you can actually feel the party. That and sweatiness. Our random dude brings us to a table that is right in front of the band. Literally, thousands of people are standing on benches and tables and singing along to some old American rock songs. Fucking rules. We get our litres of beer and start dancing. (FYI, I'm averaging 4 litres a night. That doesnt even include the day drinking).

So this probably can't get any better right? They start playing Bryan Adams. I shit you not. So this group of 6 Canadians starts fucking screaming the song and dancing on the table. Good times.

I will be posting pictures when I get back. Unfortunately, on the first night Jeff broke his camera. He doesnt remember how he did it. My guess is that he probablz dropped it into a litre of beer. Either that or some fraurlien he was talking to broke it. But we still have pictures somehow. And video.