Our first night in Munich and we were luckily awake
enough to go out on the town!  We landed around 1pm and took the train into the city and walked to our hotel.  After a quick shower we rushed down the street to the closest biergarten (beer garden…doubt that needed translation).  The biergarten we visited was Löwenbräu and we quickly learned that our German speaking ability sucks!
Löwenbräu was perfect for our first biergarten. It was a beautiful day out, meaning that there was no wind and the sun was shining.  We walked into the cafeteria line, if you can call it that, and ordered our beers and food.  Mike speaks a little Italian and too much English, but the guy taking our order was multilingual, not surprisingly.  We tried to order in German and couldn’t help but notice that all the food items listed were written in German (as they should be), but we had no idea what food we were ordering. Apparently, bratwurst wasn’t as specific as we thought.   Regardless, the food, beers, and garden were perfect for our initial stop in the city.  Afterwards we walked to Oktoberfest, which was our goal from the moment we didn’t take naps after getting to our hotel.

 

Oktoberfest was an even bigger festival than we thought. Although we received multiple warnings from people about needing tickets, we went without and arrived into the festival (after dropping our backpack at the bag check for €5…Soldier Field charges $17 to have a locker). The entire area was set up as a giant carnival with rides, game tents, food vendors, and of course beer gardens & tents.  It was almost like DisneyWorld or Six Flags in reverse….the focus was the beer and the rides were the side attraction…or maybe that was our own view. There is a ferris wheel, multiple rollercoasters, prize booths, and other carnival rides that we couldn’t help but admire.  Most people, German or not, were wearing their traditional German garb, which mostly consisted of Lederhosen.

Our only stop of the first night was literally the first beer tent we saw…. Spatenbrau!  We walked into a massive beer hall and couldn’t believe it.  Mike was in heaven, which was perfect for his 35th birthday.  Beer everywhere, German women everywhere, and public drunkenness everywhere!  We walked up to a table that had 2 people versus the 8-10 they usually sit and asked if we could sit down.  The couple, which turned out were coworkers not a couple, were very kind and said yes! Or rather they said “ja.”

View of the beer hall 

We sat down and ordered our beers but before we knew it, we were standing on our seats singing a boatload of English songs to what seemed like an incessant run of polka tunes. The bands even played “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys! We drank way too many beers, but had a ton of laughs and hung out with very nice group of Germans the whole night. As for the group we were hanging out with, we talked about our lives, sang songs, yodeled, and drank beer!

The experience was so rewarding that we ended up buying traditional German garb and sporting it when we went back to Oktoberfest for a second visit the next day. Mike now owns a pair of Lederhosen and Erica (more practically) purchased a top.

We look forward to sharing more experiences, especially as we discover Munich and Bavaria.  We are planning to head to Neuschwanstein Castle tomorrow.  More to come!

Prost (German cheers) and Love,

Mike and Erica

PS… Erica walked around with this guy!