The latest....

Last week we took a weekend off from traveling and enjoyed time around Vienna. We enjoyed delicious food and time with some new friends. We went to a couple dinner parties and went to watch a fellow co-worker's band play at a bar. We had to get ourselves all rested up for this past weekend... Oktoberfest.

We know now, the next time we go to Oktoberfest we will plan far enough in advance to stay a little longer in Munich. By the time we got around to looking into accommodations, they were minimal and pricey. So, we decided to take a day trip to Munich- which is about 4 hours away on the train. To make it worth our while we booked a 6:15 train putting us at Munich Haupbanof at 10:30. This time, we recruited Bridget, a friend and teacher from AIS, to join us. The train ride there was a spectacle in of itself, even we didn't think it was right to be that crazy before 9:00AM. There was no need to find directions to "The Fest" from the train station, we just followed the parade of people. Once we arrived we found ourselves in quite a scene. Wearing jeans and t-shirts, we were the minorities to those wearing Drindles and Lederhosen. I (Ciara) think they are SO adorable and will be purchasing one as soon as it works out in the ol' budget. Andrew says that he refuses to wear one, but if he receives a Laderhosen as a gift, he'd have to wear it,-right? And I bet you money that you will see him in one...some day. We were in the middle of the biggest county fair of beer you will ever see. The grounds were strewn with what I thought were buildings, but were actually the "beer" tents, each one holding up to 5,000 people. Beer is served in Steins (1 liter servings), and are quite heavy. The servers carrying 5+ at a time were pretty amazing. The streets along the festival were lined with booths serving oxen sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, bratwurst, gigantic pretzels, and white cotton candy. The amusement park had all rides imaginable-not such a good idea if you've had a couple steins, I'm sure. We did go on one ride, a slow-moving carousel that served the festive beverage.

Lessons we learned this time around:

Show up EARLY, like at the crack of dawn, if you want to get into the tents. They open at 9:00 AM and apparently, showing up at 11:00AM at any one of the 14 enormous tents, doesn't guarantee entry. We spent our time in the courtyard of the tents and did some amazing people watching. Songs were being chanted in not-so-perfect pitch and although people came from all over the world, we were all speaking the same common language-BEER.

We left that evening for the train where more Oktoberfesting continued and we eventually decided to nap. Leaving that night prevented a major degree of debauchery to occur and allowed us to wake up in our own happy bed the next morning.

Our adventure was another one for the memory book, and although it was just a day, it felt like we had made the entire weekend out of it. It was nice to still have Sunday to enjoy brunch outside, walk around town, go to a Spanish Tapas restaurant for dinner, and end with seeing the Hangover at an English movie theater. Perfect way to end the weekend, with a large tub of popcorn.

Now, we have a chili cook-off to go to this weekend and Andrew is going to take his shot at making his pot of goodness. To be continued...