Oktoberfest!

For my first visit to Germany, I'd say that I had a great time! We went to Oktoberfest with several of our friends and couldn't wait to start enjoying the festivities. After the long train ride and a hike to find our hotel, we finally made it to the main event. I really wanted to purchase a beer maid outfit, but they were around 100 euro and in american dollars, that would have almost been $160! So I decided to settle for German braided pigtails so that I would feel like I was fitting in! But I really wanted one of those cute outfits, maybe next year! Oktoberfest was seriously packed with people! It was difficult, (almost impossible) for all of us to stay together because the crowds were so thick. We walked around for a few hours taking in all of the sights, sounds, food, smells, watching drunk people-- all while trying to get into somewhere to have a beer. You must be seated at a table in order to get a beer. Finally we found a table in the Spaten beer garden and the real fun began!

The beer maids are awesome!! They carry a minimum of 7 beers all in one hand. Each beer is about a liter, and I even have trouble holding ONE up for a long period of time, so I can't imagine how much their wrists hurt! We enjoyed some Snitzel (spelling?) and potatoes. (Reamer was in heaven with all of the German food we ate--DonerKebabs, Snitzel, Pretzels, more Donerkebabs). We learned how to Propst correctly which is what we call (cheers). You must attempt to splash your drink into the other persons drink (to make sure they are not poisioning you). You can imagine how hard you must toast in order to acheive this. We even saw a beer stein completely break due to the forceful propsting (and of course this was from a member of our group of strong Army guys).

In the beer garden, we met people from all over the world, but somehow we ended up talking/chanting with the table beside us for most of the night and what do you know, they were Italian (we can't get away from them..j/k). After we had a few beers, the rowdy Italians taught us a bunch of their soccer (futbol) cheers! We stood on the tables for hours chanting soccer cheers and singing American songs. We just went back and forth. The Italians even knew some country songs.

We were pretty upset that we weren't at the Alabama game, but Reamer wanted to make sure that we still supported our team. He spent 30 minutes teaching about 20 Italians Rollllllllll Tide Rolllll!!!! They were happy to shout out the cheer as long as we returned the favor and supported their favorite soccer team!! It was hilarious to see them screaming Roll Tide and making the motions. It sounded like a lot of them were screaming Tiiiiiiiiddddeeeee Tide! I don't think that they understood Roll. But it was still really funny and made us feel like we were a part of the game. We got into the inside of the tent as the night was ending and saw the craziness going on around us! It was really fun!

We woke up the next morning and niavely went to the train station. We didn't think that there would be any problem with getting a train home but were we wrong. The disgruntled German train worker let us know that we would "NOT be getting to Italy at all today by train!" All seven of us were trying to rack our brains and figure out a way to get the boys back for morning PT. Missing it is not an option!! Even though everyone was freaking out a little bit, we actually had a fun time tracking around Muchen searching for bus stations, airports and rental car places. Finally we decided to rent a car and drive home. Luckily we found a rental car place that had two cars going back to Italy and we would get a discount on the price.

Even though we were exhausted, the trip back was great. Germany and Austria are beautiful. We saw the beautiful Alps and so many castles. I can't wait to go back and see more of those beautiful countries. We are going to have to go back soon!