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| Well last time I left you all I had just returned from my weekend in the ski village of Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn. Within four days, I was back on the road again for the craziest adventure so far -- Oktoberfest. Our "little" group of ten teachers left Friday right after school to begin our three and a half-day trek. The teachers who were in attendance were as follows: 4 women - Tracy (music teacher), Naoko (counselor), Lisa (counselor and dorm head) and myself. Naoko and Lisa are already really good friends and Tracy is quite a bit older than me but still really cool, so I left comfortable with the woman going but not really close to any of them. 6 men - Ian (my really good friend, fresh out of college from Manchester VT), Brian (Biology teacher from Canada), Steve (very very funny guy from Minnesota but extensive world traveler), Jeff (another very very funny guy and Steve's roommate, also fluent in German (very helpful), along with at least five other languages including Russian and Japanese), Matt (computer network- need I say more/ no offense to the networkers that I know and love), and Ian (Physics teacher). We were a very mixed group.. |
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| Well we left the school around 4:30 by the time we rounded everyone up. The first thing that we noticed about traveling in a big group was the difference in the interpretation of the statement- "leave right after school." To explain quickly, everyone was ready to go at 3:45, with the exception of one, who must of thought the above statement included time to pack and take a shower. At any rate we asked another kind teacher, Corey, to drive us in a school van as far as Montreax (45 minutes away) where we were to pick up our rental cars. |
| Now because Brian and I had done all the background work we were the two that ended up each renting a car}. I ended up getting a Volkswagen Passat wagon, standard, and Brian got an Audi wagon (slightly smaller and automatic). And because we rented the cars we did most of the driving and in my case, I did all of the driving. (That was my preference over motion sickness). It took a little while to get the cars so we weren't on the road until about 6:30 PM and we had figured it would take about 6 to 8 hours to get Munich depending on traffic. On our ride it got dark rather quickly so we didn't get a chance to see much. I know that we traveled toward Zurich where we then crossed the boarder into Austria for just a little bit (and got a stamp in our passports), and then into Germany and on to the Autobahn. I wasn't driving on the Autobahn until around 10 or 10:30 and for a while I didn't even realize that was what I was travelling on until Jeff informed me that there was no speed limit so feel free to travel as fast as I was comfortable. Well let me tell you, I was comfortable in my very nice Passat to travel quite fast. (170 !!! - don't forget that's kilometers per hour, which is about 105 miles per hour). Still not too bad for a curvy unknown road at night. That was fun!!! We arrived in Munich a little after 1:30 AM and quickly realized that we were lost. We had lost the other car about an hour back but we both knew the name and general location of the campground that we had reserved a campsite at so we figured we would meet up there. Luckily for me, I had Jeff , the German speaker in my car. After stopping to talk to a few random people on the streets of Munich we found our way to the campground. When we arrived it was hard not to notice the long line of cars and campers lining up the streets toward the entrance of the campground. There were loud, drunk people everywhere and despite feeling rather exhausted the excitement of the situation quickly revived us. When we finally reached the gates to the campground there was row of "bouncers" lining the entrance. Jeff quickly got out and explained that we had a reserved site and unfortunately the bouncers response was "FULL- SORRY". |
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| Not long after realizing that we had traveled over 8 hours only to have no place to go, we caught up with the other car. Perplexed, confused and tired we now had to race to the subway station to bring Jeff and Steve (who had already made arrangements to stay with a friend in Munich) because the subway stopped running at 2 AM. And yes that meant the only person who knew a word of German was leaving us. The situation began to look very grave. (I haven't already mentioned that in our planning of the trip prior to departure, Ian and Brian had pursued every possible place of accommodations and the city was booked. Absolutely busting at the seams). So our solution was the only one that we could foresee, we parked the car along with all the other vehicles on the side of the street and slept on the side of the road. That's right, I slept in a ditch, in Munich, at Oktoberfest. (Ironically enough, in the morning we discovered a little river on the other side of our ditch - and all that could come to mind was - "you'll be living in a van, down by the river." - for those of you who remember the classic SNL skit.) Accommodations ended up with Naoko and Tracy sleeping in our car, Ian and Matt sleeping in the other car, and Lisa, Ianl, Brian and myself grabbing a sleeping bag and pulling up some curb under the stars. We were all so tired that we actually got some descent sleep. I really didn't mind it all, in fact I rather enjoyed it- having only the side of the car to protect me from the crowds of drunken men stumbling by. Morning came quickly and luckily for us there was a subway stop only a ten-minute walk from our cozy spot of curb. |
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| Mind you, I don't mention the subway stop for reasons of transportation but rather for the very welcomed, yet urine stained odor, of the Munich station subway bathroom. Sad as it may sound, the great outdoors was a bit too public for such situations, so our fragranced bathroom had wormed it's way into our hearts. After quick freshen up (as much as possible in a public European bathroom), we did spend the thirty minutes required to figure out the subway and we were on our way to the party. Actually we went for food first. Our first stop was the Hacker House, one of the seven famous breweries in Munich. This was not part of Oktoberfest but rather a very nice restaurant with an entire menu just for beer, and another for sausage. The closest that I could come to breakfast food was a bowl of potato soup, and a beer. My colleagues proceeded to take part in the German traditions with various forms of sausage and sauerkraut and various stouts. Jeff and Steve were able to meet up with us at the restaurant so we were one big happy family again. From the restaurant we decided a little site-seeing time would be good, so we separated until 3:00 PM. Most folks did a little shopping, some went to the German museum, and others just walked around. At three o'clock we met in the main center of town, right below the famous clock (that I don't know the name of). When we met we came across an Anti-nazi demonstration with all of these people yelling and waving these red cards. It was quite interesting. From that location we headed back to the subway to make our way to Oktoberfest. |