Munich, Germany - Octoberfest
We awoke early and Bren, Alison and I farewelled Mim and Brian and headed to the airport, boarded a plane and headed to Germany. We landed in Munich and made our way to our lovely hotel. Bren was able to score a room at the Munich Novotel at a discounted rate as part of his staff travel benefits. So amongst the high flying businessmen and wealthy holiday makers, we checked into the Novotel with our backpacks. We spent the afternoon meandering through Munich checking out the city, looking for lederhosen to buy/rent and looking for a suitable spot to buy pork knuckle. Lederhosen were much to dear to buy, and we couldn’t find a rental company, so instead we bought hats (almost as good, surely). We got our pork knuckle and our Bavarian steins and headed to a beer hall in central Munich. The place was huge, several hundred people were drinking beer the way only Germans can. We met up with Helen, Tamara and Diana and drank the night away.
The next morning we made our way to the festival. Octoberfest was like a theme park for grownups. There were many rides, carnival games and food stalls selling the very best of Bavarian cuisine; surrounding tents the size of football fields filled with drunken folk from across the globe. I was in heaven. We moved from tent to tent trying to find space to sit. Most tents filled up fairly quickly, so at lunch time we were struggling to find seats. But we eventually secured a spot that was our home for the afternoon. The girls, Alison, Bren and I drank stein after stein, and made new friends throughout the day. We seemed to be the minority in the tent, as most were locals, and funnily enough, the 4 pretty girls attracted their fair share of attention. At one stage we had a huge group of Italians surrounding our table, a number of Americans, English and of course Germans. Tables usually hold 10, our group was 6, but I think we had at least 25 people (mainly guys) for most of the day. We continued to drink, we ate roast chickens, snorted minty snuff and listened to Bavarian folk bands until the ugly lights came on and they kicked everyone out.
The following day everyone was a little rough, and it took us a bit longer to get organised. We headed to the festival in the afternoon and tested out some funky rides, and inspected various tents trying to find a suitable spot. We gave up after the 8th consecutive tent was full and went and sat with the girls and a couple of fellas they had befriended the previous day. The day unfolded much the same way as the day before. After an afternoon of sitting outside drinking we migrated inside and squished into an otherwise full table. We met some new people, learnt some German drinking songs, danced and sang until again the “man” kicked us out. We missed the last train home so we ate McDonalds and caught a cab home.
The following morning was Alison’s birthday. I was feeling a bit sickly – and I had been ill for a number of days, if not weeks. The drinking, poor diet, lack of exercise and sleep for the past few months was catching up with me, so I wasn’t much company to Al on her birthday. Bren and the girls went out for a birthday lunch and a few drinks, while I lay in bed like a sack of potatoes. I hadn’t moved when they returned 3 hours later. We had promised Alison a special treat for her birthday, and so in the afternoon we watched ‘Sex and the City 2’ in the hotel room. It was awful. In the evening I was feeling mildly better and we went out for Japanese food.
The following morning we got up, packed our bags, had lunch and headed to the train station. We sadly bid farewell to Bren as he headed north to Frankfurt to fly home, and we headed south to Innsbruck, Austria.
.
Innsbruck, Austria
We arrived in Innsbruck in the afternoon and travelled to our hotel where we stayed all night still trying to recover from the previous days of madness.
The following day we met with Diana, Helen and Tam and we ventured up to the top of the Nordkette(??). The snow capped mountain was gorgeous, and the view was amazing. The snow provided entertainment for everyone as we were able to make snow men and throw snow balls. As we weren’t really wearing appropriate cold weather gear/footwear we stayed only a short while before returning to sea level. We bid farewell to the girls, and toured about Innsbruck, a truly beautiful city. Al and I caught the bus to our hotel which was 20min out of town. It was dark when we arrived, and we decided to simply eat at the hotel.
In the morning we awoke to the sound of the church bells ringing only metres from our window. I opened the blinds to reveal a stunning view from our room. The small town of Patsch encircled by bright green fields, leading to the bases’ of the looming snow capped and intimidating Austrian Alps.
We wandered the small town, and although it was blue skies and sunny, it was bitterly cold. So we lazed about, read books, watched TV, caught up on bits and pieces and before we knew it was a again night time.
.
Lucerne/Interlaken, Switzerland
We awoke and travelled to the train station and boarded a train to Lucerne, Switzerland. Lucerne was a really picturesque town, and it really felt like a town rather than a city. For 2 days we toured the sights and tried our best to not spend too much money. It was some time during our time in Switzerland – amongst the cold and rain, and ludicrously overpriced goods and services, that we made the decision that we would soon need to end our time in Europe as we simply could no longer afford to stay in places like Switzerland. So we decided that we would start making our way towards to London, and then move onto South East Asia to enjoy some sun shine and cheap living. So whilst we did our best to tour and admire Switzerland, through the rain, my mind couldn’t help but wander to warmer parts of the world.
We left Lucerne and headed to Interlaken. Interlaken had a really cool vibe. It is supposedly the adventure capital of Europe, and seemed to be a popular stop off for backpackers and thrill seekers alike. We would have loved to partake in all but a few of the activities on offer; skydiving, bungy jumping, rafting, canyoning, parasailing, the list goes on. Unfortunately for us, everything was more than a little overpriced. Everything was 2 or 3 times more expensive than back home – we decided we weren’t that desperate to part with our money. So again we wandered the town and tried our best to spend as little as possible. It was time to leave Switzerland. This presented us with our next hurdle. For the life of us we couldn’t figure out how to get out of Switzerland and into Germany cheaply. A train from Interlaken to Frankfurt was around €220, flying was not much different. Buses didn’t exist, and we looked at every possibility. Finally we discovered a ridesharing program that matches up travellers with drivers, and we were able to nab a lift from Bern (Switzerland’s capital only an hour from Interlaken by train) to Frankfurt for only €15. So we were chauffeur driven to our hotel door by a cool German fella named Markus.
No comments:
Post a Comment