Studying in Germany, I definitely felt obligated to go to Oktoberfest. Since it isn’t actually in October, but rather the end of September, we only had a short amount of time to plan a trip. We managed to squeeze in one day September 22. An overnight bus from Bremen to Munich was about 12 hours with all the stops. We stopped beforehand to get our outfits, (I honestly didn’t know the name of the girl costume until we looked it all up) and ended up with some Dirndls that will definitely be my Halloween costume for the next 3 years. In the morning, we arrived with just enough time to change and head to the fair grounds. The beer gardens open at 10, so we headed in to find some seats. We were lucky to find a group of people visiting from Australia that let us sit with them. They planned on staying and drinking all day, but we headed out after one drink. We had a chance to explore the fairgrounds. It took a while because they were HUGE! I really enjoyed the “Olde Weisen”, or Old Oktoberfest. It was a lot calmer, not so focused on chugging beer, and they had live music all day. We had enough time in the afternoon to walk over and see the Glockenspiel. I got to visit Munich in High School for a bit, so it was really nice to head back and see something that was a bit familiar. We waked back to the fairground for dinner. While I know a decent amount of German, some of the food names are still lost on me. I guessed and ended up having a decent meal, of what I think was ham and potatoes. The whole area had a different feel at night, with lights on the rides and a more family oriented crowd. Unfortunately, we had to head back to school that night, but the day we did have was very exciting, and something I won’t forget!
