Oktoberfest!!!

What does one even say about this? ;P

Opening day on Saturday was a bit anticlimactic, actually. It was pouring down rain, there were wayyyyyy too many people, and to get into the tent where the mayor was tapping the first keg as the official start to Oktoberfest, we would have needed to get there around 4am to wait in line until noon. No thanks. We ended up soaked and decided to head home and save the beer drinking for another day - we are here for two weeks, after all. A few minutes after we started weaving our way through the crowds to the exit, I realized Steve wasn't behind me anymore. Oh no! Since the plan was to head home, that's what I did and when I got off the subway, Steve came running up behind me - he was on the same subway but in a different car. :P

On Sunday night, Steve's dad came to join us for the Oktoberfest extravaganza and on Monday, we took a little Oktoberfest tour where we walked around with a guide who told basically told us that all the tents are very hard to get into without a reservation unless you come early in the morning. We took that as a challenge, and vowed to get into some of these supposedly exclusive tents in the coming days. At the end of our tour, we had a table reserved in the famous Hofbräu Haus tent, where we each had two liters of beer and half a roast chicken with the tour.

Let me tell you, two liters is a LOT of beer. It is six regular 12oz beer bottles, to be (within a few ounces of) precise. People were standing on tables chugging these liters of beer and doing other weird stuff like one guy who chugged one beer and poured a second on his head immediately after, and one guy who drank out of his shoe (gross.). The waitresses are amazing: they walk around in their dirndls carrying five, six, seven of these heavy glass steins filled with beer IN ONE HAND!!!!! That takes strength, people. I can barely hold one up to drink out of with one hand.

Our reservations at the Hofbräu tent lasted until 5pm, but we were one if the last ones remaining and we tapped out at around four. Steve and his dad drank a third beer, but it was all I could do to finish two. Steve refused to help me out, arguing that it was too early in Oktoberfest for me to not finish my beers. We wandered around Theresienwiese, the name of the grounds where Oktoberfest is held every year, for a little while before heading to bed around 7pm. Steve and I are renting a room out at a local's apartment and our host, Tarek, basically laughed at us because it was wayyyyy too early to go to bed - "That's not how it's done here in Munich." :)

On Tuesday we headed back out to Theresienwiese and managed to get seats at the Ochsenbraterei tent for lunch. There are only six breweries who serve beer at all the tents in Oktoberfest: the old, traditional Munich breweries who have to follow the strict requirements of the Bavarian Purity Laws. Hofbräu is one of them; the others are Paulaner, Löwenbräu, Spaten, Hacker-Pschorr, and Augustiner. No doubt some of you beer drinkers recognize some of these names. Among other things, the Bavarian Purity Laws declare that the beer served at Oktoberfest can only contain hops, grain, and water. The yeast is all natural yeast and there are no preservatives or any other additives, which gives it a much crisper taste than the imported bottled versions of these beers that we get in the States.

Spaten was served at the Ochsenbraterei tent, which is also famous for their roast oxen. Delicious. The tent was very colorful and a live band was playing. We had a beer with lunch before moving on to the agriculture fair, which is present at Pktpberfest every four years. We walked around looking at animals for a while before heading to one of the Paulaner tents for yet another beer, where three Germans tried to teach us how to properly pronounce the words to "Ein Prosit", which is kind of the cross between a toast and a song. Whenever the band begins to take up "Ein Prosit", everyone is supposed to clink glasses with their neighbors and take a swig.

We took a peek in the Hippodrom tent, which is supposedly where all the celebrities go and is supposedly impossible to get into. It has a circus theme inside, which was really cool, and almost immediately after we walked in, a waitress asked if we wanted a table. So much for being impossible to get into. But by this point we'd already had two beers, so we passed on the chance to sit at this elite tent. Maybe another time.

Wednesday found us at the Augustiner Brewery & Restaurant rather than at an Augustiner tent, where Steve booked us reservations for dinner. It was there that, alongside sausages and roast duck and pork knuckles and potato dumplings and other goodies, we were able to try Augustiner's Edelstoff beer. Fun fact of the day: Edelstoff is rumored to be the Pope's favorite beer. That's right - Edelstoff is on tap at THE VATICAN.

After three days of beer drinking, we took a rest day, which consisted of lots of sleeping and a trip to Therme Erding, the thermal bathhouse right outside of Munich. It has a Hawaiian/island theme, which was kind of goofy, but it was very relaxing. Plus they had a salt room where all the walls were lined with salt bricks. Way cool. Never seen one of those before.

And our days in Europe are trickling on by.... Still can't believe we head back to the States soon!