Mo In London

Travel Blog - COMING SOON!

Monday, October 02, 2006

Oktoberfest - 2006!

Wow, where to start? Friday evening we arrived at the airport and ended up having a bit of drama. Turns our our tickets were paper - not e tickets. However, we moved a few months ago, and we were not expecting paper tickets (we ALWAYS have e tickets). Apparently they probably got delivered to our old address (since we booked these tickets a long long time ago)! After many frantic phone calls we had to pay £25 per tickets to have them changed over to an e-ticket so we could check-in and ended up making it in plenty of time since our flight was delayed by an hour.
When we arrived we hopped into cabs and finally at 1:30 am arrived at our 'hotel.' Our cab driver looked at us seriously when he dropped us off and said 'you know not hotel - is pension.' Yes, yes - we know. We went in to look for 'reception' which apparently was IN the night club (which is a restaurant during the day) downstairs. The bartender checked us in - which took awhile since we couldn't understand him and he couldn't hear us over the VERY loud music.
Eventually got our room keys and headed up the very old squeaky wooden steps. The place actually didn't look that bad - clean nice rooms, only bad thing was you had to share your toilet & shower with a few other rooms - oh well. We walked into the section where our room was and we were VERY surprised to see a naked man standing in the hall!!!!!! He just stared at us as we hurrily got the key in the door and locked it behind us - OH. MY. GOSH. Once in the room we realized that we could clearly here every word to the songs playing in the night club below - I think our floor was part of the ceiling to the club. So we joined the group downstairs and had our first beer steins until the police shut us down for being too noisy at 3 am.
Someone gave us one of these gingerbread cookies down in the bar - I though it was cute!

Murray thought it looked tasty!

Although after a few bites he realized that I was right - it was for display purposes only - and quite stale!
Next morning we headed off for the Oktoberfest festivities at 10 am. Our hotel was only 2 blocks away!!!

Shelly, Lance, Steve, Larry, ME!

There were TONS of arcade games and fair rides!

First beer of the day - 11am!

We tried to get into one of the beer beer tents. But we were VERY surprised to find all of them full - at 10AM! Most of them already had their doors closed (i.e. it was at maximum capacity). There was only one where we actually got inside - but the tables were PACKED! (You only can get served if you have a seat). So we decided to look around for somewhere else to hang out. We found this great place that was completely empty and we secured a fantastic table where we sat for half an hour until they opened at 11. It was outside (warm, but not stuffy from smoke), and we had a very high raised table and benches (a great people watching spot).

Me & Richard

Shelly was on bosom watching patrol.' Those German ladies sure knew how to hike 'em up! (notice the bosom to her right)

Lance (i.e. Robbie Williams) & Shelly

Tons of Americans gravitated towards our table as the day went on. I don't remember their names - but the two on the left are from South Carolina, the other two are from Ohio. They were nice - fun to chat to.


Shelly, Me and South Carolina girl - she was lovely!

Steve: "Yes, 2 more beers please, these 6 I have are NOT enough! Danke"

Sadly we got kicked out of the beer garden at around 6:30pm. One of the random American guys at our table reached up to steady himself by grabbing the cord supporting the light above our table. Of course the entire structure crashed down. When we saw the bouncers coming over while putting on their black leather gloves we knew it was all over:( Unfortunately the guy fled after the incident, and they didn'tbelievee us that the perpetrator had gone. Thus, we were all marched out of the place.

However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We then headed into the city to look for some grub. We ended up at a great German restaurant - where we had our first litre beers of the day! (Man those things are heavy - I HAD to use 2 hands). We had been drinking half litres at the other place.

Murray's 'rare' steak that came out 'blue.' I was NOT interested in trying a piece (ewwww) although my weinerschnitzel was gorgeous!

Day 2: we decided to get up at the crack of down to make our way down to the tents. SO bizarre to get up when it's still dark out to go drink beer - STRANGE! So we queued (lined) up outside the Lowenbrau tent at 8am. They opened the doors at 9 - and we were some of the first people in - which meant we had a choice of what table we wanted. You don't get served unless your seated - thus why everyone was lining up so early!

This is our waitress Sonja who served up our first litres at 9am - WOW!

Lunch the German way - sausage and sauerkraut - YUMMY!!!!

Shelly & Murray standing on the bench. (you were allowed to stand on the benches - but not the tables - if you did that the security put on their black leather gloves & came to throw you out!)

Our table! (from left) Larry, Shelly, Me, Murray, Richard, Lisa, Steve & James


The sausage was fantastic - but you had to make sure not to eat this sausage clip - Ekkkk!

LOVE the hats - so stylish!

Anyone for some chicken???


This old man joined a table of guys sitting near us - they convinced him to do some snuff with them - ha ha!

I can only guess what we were talking about - hmmmmm?

YAY - CHEERS! BROST!


Ohhh this was like a giant sugared donut - and MAN was it nice!

We will try some time this week to get some of the videos on youtube.com so you guys can watch them - fingers crossed I can figure it out!

Oh - and I must say I was SHOCKED at how many (YOUNG) people wore traditional outfits to the celebrations. Nearly all of the Germans seemed to be in leiderhosen & dresses with aprons - made me REALLY want one of those outfits! Alas, I don't think I'd actually wear that in London - so maybe not.


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6 Comments:

At 12:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post!! The weekend looked fantastic!! Right up my alley, BEER and meat!!!!!! How did the beer swilling Murray cope with all that beer?? i know he's not the biggest fan hahaha ;-)

 
At 9:32 AM, Blogger Heather said...

Looks like you guys had a great time!

 
At 12:04 PM, Blogger Monique said...

Steve - Murray actually kept up really well! I think it was the GOOD beer:)

 
At 8:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great pictures! It looks like you had a fabulous time. Oh, and I can't believe that waitress carrying that HUGE tray of beer? LOL. How ever did she do it...?

:)

 
At 9:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It wasn't a tray.
She was carrying them all by the handles!!!
She had forearms like iron bars.
She would be pretty awesome in an arm wrestle match.....

 
At 9:26 AM, Blogger Monique said...

Ha ha Steve - you beat me to it!
Yup - that was no tray - the ladies would grab TONS of handles to the beer steins in either hand - AMAZING!

 

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