“The wiesn I came is because of the beer!”
– Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest (also called Wiesn or Oktobafest) is the world’s largest Volksfest, featuring a beer festival and a travelling carnival, and is held annually in Munich, Germany, from mid- or late-September to the first Sunday in October. And when my excellent and admirable friends decided I should go to… Well, what choice did I really have? ❤
There really isn’t a lot of text involved in this post. In September 2023 I flew to Munich and met up with the guys. They all shared a hotel somewhere, I never really understood in what direction, and I am all “shared and hosteled out” after my RTW trip so I got my own room at a hotel right next to the park that served as Oktoberfest venue.
Share with the guys or have privacy, proximity and this all to myself? Tough choice…
I flew down in the afternoon September 15th and stayed for two nights, going back home in the evening of September 17th. The guys stayed one more night, but I had mandatory school stuff and needed my beauty sleep. The evening we all arrived we met up at some place with large tables made of entire forests, enormous ale mugs and meat on the menu. At least that’s how I remember it. And that’s the evening I actually DO remember… Øyvind R had made medallions for everyone to commemorate the trip (for the other guys this is an annual event) and this quickly turned into my Christmas Tree ornament from this trip.
We had dinner, some laughs and a relatively early night because the next day we had to get up before the crack of dawn toooooo:
QUEUE!
Can I get a WOOP!
All of Munich
I thought I kinda knew what to expect. Turns out I didn’t. The line was insane, the whole city was there (slight exaggeration) and the atmosphere was a mix of “already exhausted cause this is too early for any human being to queue” and “buzzing”. There are no allotted seats in the beer tents so it’s very much a “first come, first served” scenario. When the gates open – the sprinting starts. And I do mean -sprinting-.
Øyvind H and I were not really caught up in the frenzy so we trailed a bit behind when the gates finally DID open and the entire line went bananas. Literal stampede. No joke. Everyone and their grandma hightailed it in their dirndls and costumes and at some point we passed a shoe lying on the ground – a sacrifice to the Gods of Good Seats. Someone literally thought “F*ck the shoe, I can get another!”. Slightly insane, but I guess we were here for it(?)
The other lads ran for it, being veterans of this insanity, so they texted us where they were sitting and we found our way into a massive tent full of people and sat down with them. The amount of noise, the decoration, the people – it was a bit of an assault on the senses, and before the first five beers I wondered why I was there. Then came the period between beer five and seven where I remember 90s music and fun times and someone eating an entire roast chicken, or a large slab of roast pork, with nothing else on the plate (because there IS nothing else during Oktoberfest, it is BEER and MEAT. Period.)
After that I can’t really remember much. BUT I BOUGHT A BALLOOOOON!!
“My loneliness is killin’ me (AND I!)” “I must confess, I still believe (STILL BELIEVE)!!!1”
I’m exaggerating again, of course. I remember the whole night. (And also, there was some potato mash on those plates. An alibi, if anything). After three years in Trondheim and two years in Wolverhampton as a student, my body was close to alcoholic, but that is so long ago now that I require one of those massive beer mugs they had to reach the point you see in the photo above. And I didn’t actually overdo it this trip. I was uncharacteristically smrt #ThumbsUp
Didn’t even have a hangover, but I was very happy that when I felt beat I only had to walk 10 minutes to find my hotel room.
The next day I met up with the guys in the same park, the atmosphere was a bit calmer, people sat outside in the sun and drank massive beer mugs and ate -complete roast chickens- again. It’s unhinged, I loved it ;-D There were also parades with people dressed in full uniform, some of them seemed like a band, but I also know from my “extensive anthropological study” (ie. drinking with my beloved Tazara Germans) of “Shützenfest” that there are uniforms specifically for such occasions… Who knows. Staggering amount of people in this park though, I must say.
I had to leave before the other guys, but it was a lovely send off. In super nice sunshine I had a drink with them, chatted for a good while and just chilled until I went back to the hotel, fetched my trusty bag and walked to the train station. I absolutely love trips where I can walk everywhere I need to get, especially when it’s a trip with time constraints like this one. I hope I get to come with them on another one of these. It’s been impossible for me the two years following this one, but one day I will ❤
bakoyma.com 