Oktoberfest!

Up fairly early to get a good start to our day of Oktoberfest. I ran a little late for breakfast because of the mirror in the bathroom. Yeah, you read that correctly. They had one of those magnifying mirrors attached to the wall in the bathroom. A light on it too. Normally, when I use my electric shaver I can be done pretty fast. It must've taken me 5 times as long as it usually does because of that damn mirror. Whiskers that I usually miss and ignore due to my failing eyesight look like steel cables or telephone poles coming out of these manhole-sized openings in my skin!!! No one over the age of INFANT should look at their skin so closely!!! Seriously!!! Like shaving with a electron microscope!! The surface of the moon is smoother then that disgusting sight I witnessed! But I couldn't look away. I had to keep shaving, looking for every little hair, even the whispy ones, to chop them down to size. If you ever check into a hotel and they have one of those cursed things in the bathroom, treat it like Medusa!! Don't look directly at it!! Just blindly throw a towel over it and go about your business!

I finally finished shaving and made it to breakfast. Afterward, we walked from the pension, going around Munich sightseeing for a little while before going to the grounds where Oktoberfest was taking place. Now, naive as I am about these matters, I thought Oktoberfest engulfed the entire region if not the country based on those fine, fact-filled Hollywood resources like “Beer Fest” and (was it?) “Stripes”. I’m sure I’ve seen others, but just like when I worked in Japan on a 2 week project and those Japanese engineers I worked with thought everyone on the streets and highways shot at each other like “Ah-nold”, Stallone, and Bruce Willis, I thought Oktoberfest was an all-encompassing event. It's not! It's confined to one area in the city. However, it IS the biggest carnival/fair atmosphere I have ever seen! Rides all over the place, and not the type at county fairs in the US that look like they may fly apart at any second killing all riders and several gawkers eating cotton candy back in Bug Tussle. These were first class, huge, brand new looking rides - - and too many to count! If I had to make a guess, I would say between 70 to 100, and that’s not including the beer tents or food concessions!!!

We tried to get in one tent, but it was packed and the guy near the door said “No”. So, standing in line we gradually made our way up to the front while mostly clean-smelling people wedged up against us. I came to find out that later in the day is when the clean-smelling people really get funky. And let's face it - - this is Oktoberfest, so it's easily 80% drunk, or on their way to drunk, dudes. Just what I want, drunk, stinky dudes all up in my space!! So, we left that line after a little loitering and walked around trying to decide which one to try next. After a few dead-ends, we had success. We didn’t get in a tent, but we did manage to find one open seat at a table. You have to be seated before they would allow you to order a beer. For some reason, they will not serve you if you don’t have a seat at one of the gazillion picnic tables. So a guy was kind enough to let one of us sit, place an order for 4 beers, and as soon as the beer was delivered and the server turned his back we bolted the scene with the 50 gallon glasses of golden liquid!! With nowhere to sit, we searched and found a place with ample standing room where the sun was shining and most passersby would say “cheers” and clink our glasses! Now, these are NOT your ordinary glasses!! They have gone through stress and crash tests that would make the automobile insurance industry envious. These glasses get slammed together with such force and gusto that half of the beer shoots out like Old Faithful and as it makes it’s way back down to Earth a good portion of the airborne nectar ends up back in the glass it came out of or in one of the 5 to 10 glasses that were smashed together in not-so-perfect unison.

As we were standing and drinking, waiting for some spots to open up so we could sit down, a very drunk Italian (it was Italian week) was being propped up by his friend about 10 feet from us. The dude was in really bad shape, just dead weight to his buddy who struggled to keep him upright. Soon, there were 2 guys trying to walk the guy out of the crowd, but he didn’t quite make it. He was eased down onto the concrete and I held my camera overhead to make a couple of pictures. I was there to document Oktoberfest, and this was pretty much part of it. Well, a woman who had been selling pretzels saw me and put her hand in front of the lens and said “No Photo!” in a very authoritative way. I got a little irritated, but I got the shot I wanted anyway so that evaporated into nothing. The “beer medics” came and began to tend to him as he lay on the ground. He “expelled” a keg-load of liquid and then proceeded to roll around in it. (Nice, huh?! Guess he wanted proof for his friends that he attended Oktoberfest.) I took another picture or 2 when one of the beer patrol dudes grabbed the front of the camera as I finished shooting, which immediately and impulsively caused me to tell him to get his damn hands off my camera. He did (surprisingly), and after a brief stare down we found a place for all of us to sit. Meanwhile, the drunk Italian was carted off on a stretcher, leaving behind what can only be described as a big "smear" on the pavement.

People at a table we were standing next to got up, so we swooped in. We ran over, quickly claimed the spots, and smiled at each other like potheads finding a bale that has washed up on shore. We sat, talked with the people at the table who were from Germany, Australia, and Peru, and ordered some food and more beer. We stayed until after 8pm, several hours after our schedule for dinner, but once you manage to park your ass in a seat, you’re loath to give it up! We walked around the rides and then took the metro back to our Pension so we could eat at a German restaurant in the vicinity. It was full but we found another smaller one not too far away so we ordered, ate, and said our goodbyes back at the hotel as our friends were leaving in the morning before we would get up for our trip to Venice.