Octoberfest

For those of you who read my last entry you probably realized how bad a shape I was in. Today isn´t much better, but I´m going to get this over with in fear that I may actually never do it since I´m trying to block those memories out. I´ve created subtitles for each day and toned down the stories a bit since my parents are reading this. If you´ve met my parents that wouldn´t make sense, except for the fact that this past weekend was THAT outrageous.

DAY 1- HELL
Leading up to our adventure Mike and I had decided to meet in Munich, but that was about all we had planned. Frantically emailing him at the last minute I outlined the plan, along with two other backup plans in case the former fell through. This was a constant source of preoccupation during my entire train ride. It didn´t help that my train was late and therefore we were going to have to check to plan b (if he even got the email at all). However, as I walked up to the hotel I had a sudden sense of ease because I saw that they had a bar. I skipped over every plan and walked straight up to the bar to see one Michael John with a shit eating grin on his face and a beer in his hand. After meeting a few others of the motley crew and a quick shower, we decided to head to Octoberfest. It was a wednesday night at 8pm and raining so we thought ¨no problem.¨ Wrong, big problem. The rules of octoberfest are as follows:
1 If you want beer, you need to be seated at a table
2 If you are seated at a table, you must be drinking beer
Well, every table was full and absolutely no one wanted to help us. After running around from tent to tent trying to find seats and being surrounded by people who werent only drinking, but having the time of their lives, we decided to cut our losses. Since, after all, when all you want is a beer and you are surrounded by tons that you can´t have is my definition of hell. We hit the streets, but apparently all the beer drinking was going on in the tents cause a bar was hard to find. After an hour of wondering and being mislead, AJ yells at some german ´HEY! Do you speak english?!¨ Surprisingly he did, and even more surprisingly he didnt walk away. Peter was his name and he was not only kind enough to lead these four horses to our proverbial water, he actually joined us for a round or two.

DAY 2 NOSE CANDY
I decided to not put the end of the night in the previous chapter since it was getting too long. Oh yeah, and the four of us had a collective blackout. The problem with German beer is that its so smooth. Smoother than light beer, yet about twice as alcoholic. We also had trouble with the liter conversition, and by trouble I mean we each drank four of them. I awoke to a splitting headache to meet (or shall I say re-meet since I actually met them the night before) the other five joining us. We rallied and made it to the tents a little before noon to ensure a table. This is a thursday by the way. About two liters into the day I noticed a table next to us sharing in nose fulls of white powder. Let me preface this by saying that Ive NEVER done coke, and don´t even think Ive even seen the stuff. But we were at the biggest party in the world so who knows. It looked like they were being a little to liberal with it, so to settle our tables debate I went up and asked them. Instead of giving me an answer they requested I try it, to which I refused...twice. My manhood was questioned, but hell, thats happened before. An american told me its their equivalent to tobacco, but I decided to err on the side of caution until I saw it being sold by a tabacconist. I bought some, but this stuff was brown. Brought it back to the table and got some very questionable looks from our table. As the hours and days of drinking went on everybody eventually loosened up to it and we had a ton of fun with it on the last day. The truth about it is that its powdered mint, not even tabacco, it is literally nose candy. Im sure half of you reading this now think Im a coke addict, but just wait til you go, you´ll see. I digress. For some reason I decided to race everyone and drink my beers faster than them. After four I was apparently passing out at the table, so Mike, being the good friend that he is, took me out. Did he take me home? Nay I tell you, the ass took me on roller coaster rides. Surprisingly I held my lunch and it actually worked, but who thinks of that? I mean honestly.

DAY 3 PROST!
I would say with each day our cultural experiences grew and grew. This day we decided to go on a four hour bike tour around the city, with the only problem being that it was pouring down rain. In all our hungover misery we headed to the meeting point telling each other how dumb we were for doing this. It literally took the guide to tell us no before we got it through our think skulls that it wasn´t happening. Check to plan b: OCTOBERFEST! Since it was a friday and afternoon, we knew we wouldnt be able to sit all nine together so we divided and quasi-conquered. The four in my ´team´ almost started an international conflict. Our waited demanded we sit in these certains seats (the only ones for four) yet the other six HUGE germans demanded we didn´t. After much arguing between waiter and patrons, we sat with the utmost angst. Im afraid of very few people in my life, yet I was afraid of all of these guys. The one hitch was: they were all sucking on Chupa Chups (lollipops for those of you who never had a childhood) that made it ultra weird. After the most uncomfortable beer in my life Lindsey arranged a deal where we would swap with the four other people where TEAM B was seated. During the transition, however, four german old dudes sat in our place. Not willing to relinquish our seats that easy, we then crammed nine into a space where 5 should fit. Needless to say I wont be having children. The situation proved quite hilarious though as one old dude kept hitting on one of the girls, despite several refutes from her and all of the guys pretending to be her boyfriend. The older men ended up being quite nice however, even though they spoke very little english. Whenever there was a communication breakdown all we did was shout PROST! Which is essentially CHEERS. In germany though they are very particular about their PROST:
-You have to wait until every one has their glass
-You touch glasses with everyone AND look everyone in the eye (shoutout for Chew)
-You clink your glass down on the table and take a swig

Any deviation can reult in some angy germans. Also, about every 30 minutes the band would play a song that just went LA PROSTE, LA PROSTE over and over again and you had to stand and toast for that. I think it was after about 3 liters that I decided I was going to stand on the table (which is pretty common) and chug an entire liter (which I thought was common). The former ensued and I was applauded by many. I then had enough liquid courage to meet the germans next to us, a group of twenty year olds that spoke a bit better english and were quite nice. I think I had one more drink after that but perhaps it was two, I cant remember.

DAY 4 WHO THE HELL DID WE THINK WE WERE
We arrived at the tents around 830, an hour before they opened. I would say there was already a crowd of a thousand or so waiting, the problem being on the weekends (we finally made it to saturday) most of the table were reserved. We wedged our way into the crowd and by the time the doors opened we were so crammed in that people were literally lifted off their feet and moved by the pack. We decided to abandon hope of the inside tent and took a table outside. This is where the nose candy comes back in, and its called snoose by the way. We decided to got ahead and embrace it and at least take pictures like we were rockstars. We also made random people, including forty plus year old parents indulge. At high noon, after two liters, I decided it was time to chug again. It went down too easy. I then get the brilliant idea that this is how I should drink the rest of my beers. After the third chug I felt like Landfill from Beerfest and had random Germans come up to take pictures with me. They were astounded I was still standing. I actually put down a fourth, which was to stop a fight between more random germans I met and the next table. Im not sure how I thought chugging a beer would calm tempers, but it did. I think I had one more (nonchug) but it gets a little hazy. Im not sure how or why we split up to return to the hotel, but we did and I was in charge of a group of three. Right, me in charge! I led us straight for the biggest roller coaster, then took us home.

DAY 4 ROUND 2
We were all so happy we all made it home that we decided to have a drink to celebrate, good idea right? I want to say this was around 10 and I was alternating with water by then as I started feeling actually pretty good. As the minutes passed so did members of the group (we were up to thirteen by then). Once we were down to five or six I actually happened upon another group of americans (and one swed). We got to talking, hit it off, and decided to drink some more beers. We then met up with an irishman and decided to take shots, and drink some more beers. I want to say we stopped around 5am but that´s a rough estimate. That seriously was the craziest day of my life.

DAY 5 WHO THE HELL DID WE THINK WERE, PT 2
Never felt physically worse. Every ounce of my energy was being concentrated on not throwing up. Its been three days and Im still hungover, and its bad. That night I had to take a midnight train from Munich to Florence. Perfect thing for a hangover right? A nine hour train ride in an upright position? Im sure the people hated me to cause I probably smelled like booze as Im sure it was leaking through my pores.

AFTERTHOUGHTS
-Adam Pollock and Colin Young should never go to this event, you won´t make it out alive.
-There may actually be such a thing as too much fun and I think I had it
-If I didnt paint a good enough picture imagine this:

Take all the craziness that is Las Vegas, but instead of 52 weeks in the year, cram it all into 3 weeks.

fin