I am in the airport in Munich waiting for my flight to Barcelona after having gone through the most geologically slow security line I’ve ever been in. Added to this frustration is the fact that both Dan and I had to pay huge weight overage charges to check our baggage. Although we had paid the fee so we could each check two bags, our overall weight limit of 23 kilos did not increase. My bags were initially 37 kilos, but I shuffled some things around, pulled out another carryon bag, and got my total weight to 27 kilos. This would seem to me a greater success were the fee for weight overage not 10 Euro per Kilo.
With that as an introduction, hello and welcome back to my blog, being an account of my travels and adventures in Germany, Spain and beyond. This week and a half, until I settle in Cádiz, Spain, I am traveling with my friend, Dan Berve. He will eventually settle in Baeza after our paths split in Barcelona.
From what I have seen of Berve’s blog, it will read more like a step-by-step log where I will likely not be as specific about most events.
To revisit our Munich adventures:
After we eventually made it to our hotel despite a few wrong turns, we rested a bit, exhausted and starving. The hunger eventually won out and we made the trek to the fairgrounds and Oktoberfest! I dragged Dan from stand to stand looking for a passable schnitzel, and when we finally found one, I dug in and polished it off quickly as we walked to the nearest beer tent. There was an issue checking into the hotel that I will describe later (I try to avoid coming across as whiny, so I will spread out the bad news), so we really wanted to sit down and have a beer. We wandered from tent to enormous tent, looking for a table to sit at and we couldn’t believe that we couldn’t find a place to sit, or any discernable way to get our hands on a beer. As far as we could tell we were the only stone sober people in the building, and while it was an incredible sight to see thousands of people crammed together singing German drinking songs and generally making jolly, we were really craving that beer. It had been raining lightly all day (as it would for our entire trip; though sitting here in the airport I notice the weather is quite nice now) so while there were outdoor beer gardens outside each tent, they were nearly empty and all the tables and benches were very wet.
We eventually gave in and sat down outside the Augustiner Bräu tent, which was maybe the fourth we visited. There were a few people sitting at the tables and we sidled up next to a group of rowdy Australians. On of them, Spongy (He had a spongebob belt buckle, a stuffed spongebob toy hanging from his belt, and a picture of spongebob tattooed on his right butt cheek and was not shy to show all of them to anyone who asked his name.), said to us, “Don’t even try to sit in the tents, its fun but this is where the real party is, once it gets dark. You’re lucky you stopped here, this is the best damn beer here!”
And it was. We were introduced to the server for our area, Tommy, and for 10 euro he served up a litre of Augustiner Bräu. The Aussies had been at this same tent, at the same table for 3 days and had a great rapport with Tommy and his brother, Alex. We sat at the same table each night as well, even after the Aussies left, and quickly got to know the servers and vendors that worked our section. In addition, we met many people from Germany and elsewhere who sat in our section.
More later, my plane is about to board.
Prost!
Russ
