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Introduction If there's one place I visited on my trip where I wish I'd been able to stay longer, it's Munich. Yes, I made the mistake of trying to squeeze all of Munich into a day trip, including OKTOBERFEST for Pete's sake. This was quite a bonehead move, since it was a 3-4 hour trip each way just to get there from Frankfurt in the first place, and the last train left Munich at around 7 at night. I was also not even sure the day prior whether or not I would be headed down in the first place, since I was totally lost on the fact that "Munich" and "Munchen" are the same place. Why are proper nouns different from language to language, anyway? My realization went something like this: Me: "This is ridiculous!
There isn't a single train that goes from Frankfurt to Munich."
My tattered book of timetables, by the way, was pretty much my bible in Europe. And this Eurail company? Totally great, I recommend them highly. I also have to give some major props to Rail Europe, which is the company I actually purchased my pass through. They have excellent phone customer service and lots of other packages for sale. I bought (still unused) tour bus tickets through them, as well as a Paris museum pass. I did all of this at the last minute, too, and they still managed to be accommodating. Free advertising aside, here's what the inside of my book looked like:
The inside is hilariously mangled and dog-eared, which can partially be attributed to a few nights of planning while intoxicated. Does my writing make any sense? No, not really. It's a wonder I was able to get where I was going when all of my planning looked like this. Fun fact: Kölne and Cologne are also the same place, and I didn't know this until I was standing in the outdoor area of the Kölne train station and saw the Cologne cathedral towering above me. The trip to Munich was long and uneventful. The German countryside is beautiful to look at out the window of a moving train, but I got an unlucky seat assignment and wound up craning my neck to see around the giant window divider that occupied the row of seats I was in. All alone on the train, I looked into the gray sky and mused at the fact that it was the same color most of the time in my hometown. The buildings looked vastly different, but German grass is still green, the sky is still gray, and evergreen forests roll over the hillsides just like back at home. I was supposed to meet up with two friends at 4 in the afternoon (or 16:00, on a European clock), but I'd taken an early train on purpose so I'd have some time to goof around in Oktoberfest first. Forget Disneyland, folks. THIS is the happiest place on earth, even on a gray day.
Apparently the local population sort of avoids this place, because the majority of the crowd is comprised of loud, drunken tourists. There were lots of people of all ages dressed in silly hats and lederhosen, and pretzel and souvenir stands as far as the eye can see. It was like a drunken state fair on steroids. Before I get too far into describing the surreal-ness that is Oktoberfest, I just want to state for the record that this is considered a family friendly event. There were babies in strollers, here.
Every building here looked like it was made for some sort of gigantic doll house.
I really do wish the weather had been nicer, because some of the sights and colors here were just fantastic. Not a single person wore a frown. Even the drunks were happy! There was music in the air!
I took a picture of this thing (bumper cars, I think?) because this is where the surreal weirdness of Oktoberfest reached its climax for me. As people were bumping along under the neon lights, Shaggy's "It wasn't me" was blasting over the attraction's loudspeaker. What says "family fun" better than blinking lights, bright colors, booze, and a graphic, 90's musical interpretation of trying to hide copious amounts inappropriately-ordained sex? Good times! Turn up the volume to that song and keep it playing as you look at the next few pictures. I find that it really captures the atmosphere well.
Some more attractions. I think that one red stand on the right is a shooting gallery, and there were many of these. What goes well with beer? Guns, of course!
This is the world's most awesome, ornate, incredible carousel. Please note the presence of little kids and strollers... this is fun for the whole family!
The slide itself is pretty amazing. What's more amazing than the slide? Look at how many people are standing around watching it. This is some serious entertainment right here, apparently.
A lot of attractions were decked to the gills in glorious blinking lights, crappy pop music, and animatronics. It was sort of like being trapped inside some sort of surreal Disney cartoon, only a hell of a lot spookier and with alcohol involved.
HÖLLENBLITZ. I'm pretty sure this translates into "Freaking scary-ass rock wall haunted house thing that will terrorize you in your sleep for the next ten years if you climb it while drunk."
This is one of the immense beer tents of Oktoberfest; the main reason people travel here in the first place. It was LOUD, and a strange sort of haze hung about the top of the building. As a fun exercise, see how many silly hats you can count in this picture. At around 4, my friends showed up and we moved away from Oktoberfest into the city. Also, it started to POUR rain. I hadn't seen it rain that hard since my family drove up the Columbia river gorge one day to see Multnomah falls. Either way, one of my friends had an umbrella and we set off into the city to see the sights of downtown Munich. I haven't posted pictures of my friends here, as I'm not sure they would approve. Our first stop was a gothic church just outside of Oktoberfest. I was eager to explore it, since this was the first real piece of gothic architecture I'd seen in Europe. Most of the pictures were too blurry to post, but here are a few goodies I managed to salvage:
Up there on that buttress is my first gargoyle encounter in Europe!
Look! A real gothic triforium and clerestory! From the church, we moved into downtown Munich and toured what (I think) is called the pedestrian precinct. No cars are allowed here, and this is where most of the fancy-shmancy shopping in the city is located.
The town hall in Munich is simply stunning, decked out in full Gothic styling.
From the pictures, it's hard to get an idea of just how rotten the weather was while I was here. I wasn't about to let it put a damper on my visit, though.
My friend claims that Hitler gave a famous speech at this monument. I am not sure whether or not that is true, or what the monument is called. Oh well. After a lovely dinner at a little Italian restaurant, I had to hit the road. One of my friends insisted on buying me a real German pretzel before I departed, and it was one of the most delicious treats I have ever eaten. It was slightly crisp on the outside, and warm and doughy on the inside. The train ride back to Frankfurt (or home, as I kept accidentally calling it), was a little bit rough, but also rather hilarious. A bunch of mildly-intoxicated middle aged German guys in Lederhosen were sitting behind me, and they had purchased some sort of device (I never saw what it was) that sang drinking songs and told jokes. They would roar into whooping, raucous laughter and/or start singing with each recording that played. My nerves played up on me again a little bit on that train ride, only because it was pitch dark outside and at one point the train actually turned around. Visions started flashing through my head of being stranded in a strange German town at night, and possibly having to sleep under a bridge somewhere. Needless to say, that did not happen and I made it back to Frankfurt safe and sound. The next day, I set off for Amsterdam. |
