Rather fortunately I managed to be cheeky enough to ask a girl called Rachael from Leeds who I didn't know before (thanks to my shocking lack of attempt to socialise with course people over the last two years, I am so sorry guys) if I could stay at hers along with the others who were heading down. With six of us to sleep in a room where she isn't technically allowed guests and given the fact that we hadn't reserved a table for the beer tents there was a fair amount of things that could go wrong. We didn't let it worry us on the friday night though and went out locally for some food and a few drinks. The man in the bar didn't seem too impressed at having to sort food at 10pm so instead of giving us the menus he insisted on giving us Gnnochi (which was incredibly cheesy). Me and Ali, being the 'lads' (loosest sense of the word) of the group raced ahead on the beer front and a good night was had by all.
Completely ignoring advice to get to the festival at 7am on the saturday in order to get a bench (you can't buy drinks unless you are sat at a table) we opted for the slighly later butstillreallyfuckingearlyonaweekend time of 11am for our arrival and after buying a can and some pizza at the Hauptbahnhof we got the tube out to the Wiesn. As an aside, if you ever find yourself in Munich Hbf, but pizza from the stand with slices for €2.20/€2.40 and you won't regret it. We arrived at the festival area in the pissing down rain and headed for the nearest tent. There was a big queue but eventually we got inside. And then we saw why you should go at 7am. There was probably 7000 odd people inside and we just couldn't find a table.
So after a lot of aimless walking around we did the very English thing and gatecrashed someone elses table. Once we had our massive Steins they couldn't shift us and when we finally took the subtle hints people were giving (or in the case of the German man who lost his temper and shouted 'RAUSGEHEN' at us repeatedly, less subtle hints) and moved on to a different table. This way we managed to meet lots of Germans and people of various nationalities, including a Welsh man and an Australian who had devised a rather unsophisticated version of higher or lower and a good afternoon was had by all.
The Steins are lethal. Actually lethal. At €10 a time they should be really (well, €8.95 plus the tip you have no choice but to leave for the mardy and occasionally violent waitresses). Tipsy after a couple and completely gone after a couple more, there really isn't much I can say about the rest of the day. We angered on of the said waitresses by sitting at what looked like a perfectly available table. We went to a different tent for another drink. I spoke at length to an Australian man about cricket and probably didn't make much sense at all. I excitedly bought a Schnitzel sandwich and was completely gutted that it wasn't hot. I tried to put too much Currywurst in my mouth and it went everywhere. We went back to the same place as the previous night for tea and he took the tablecloths off the tables before letting us eat. We headed back to Rachael's with the intention of going out but i passed out under the desk and apparantly everyone else did soon after so the night out never happened. Probably a good idea really as much more alcohol would definitely been a bad idea!
The only regret I would have about the weekend is that I didn't have Lederhosen, but really at €100 it would have been one novelty purchase too far. So we did the English thing and wore white tshirts and wrote profanities on each other. And thanks to Sophie who thought writing "Ich will Maenner" on my back I got several concerned looks from German men!
So yeah, I had a brilliant weekend and I would definitely recommend Oktoberfest to everyone who likes sinking a few ales. And what could make an awesome weekend even better? Super Emile scoring a late winner in a local derby, that's what.
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