After a month of class, we felt like going on another vacation and it turns out that Munich is only a night train ride from Copenhagen. Plus, Alex and Emily live there now. Plus, Sharone and Brian would be passing through on their European tour. Plus, it was Oktoberfest!
Unfortunately, our night train arrived at 10am, which was much too late to find a spot in a beer hall. About 30,000 drunken Germans had already filled the 14 beer halls and all available outdoor seating.
So, we headed for one of the many other beer gardens in Munich. We found seats and some very large beers in the garden surrounding this Chinese Tower.
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After a few beers, as we walked back towards town, we found these surfers on the river.
Our first non-drinking related stop was the new City Hall.
City Hall's main attraction is the 'Glockenspiel' - a musical clockwork that chimes and re-enacts a couple of 15th century stories.
The next day, we got up extra early and headed back to Octoberfest. Even though we arrived only minutes after the doors to the beer halls opened, there were no seats left inside. Drunken Germans are very eager!
Luckily, we found seats outdoors and ordered some early-morning beers (delivered shortly they served this young family).
Inside each beer "tent," there is a band which plays classic German folk songs and other sing-a-longs like "Take Me Home, Country Roads." After a few beers (i.e. 10am), everyone is standing on their seats and people start dancing on the tables.
Inside some of the tents, there are other attractions, such as this shooting gallery.
The time at Octoberfest passed very quickly, filled with 1L beer steins, greasy food, roller coaster rides, and tales of Queen's. At some point, the following pictures were somehow taken by my camera:
The next day, Sharone and Brian had left for Amsterdam, and our wallets couldn't support another day of Oktoberfest, so we headed for a nice museum:
We spent a couple very nerdy hours looking at bridges, planes and windmills.
On our way back to the train station, we passed a very ornate Catholic church (apparently the Protestant reformation wasn't very popular in Munich).
We continued to the fountains at Karlsplatz,
where Marieke and Emily found a very colorful lion.
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