Day Nine - Oktoberfest, friend or foe....

So Oktoberfest … Been there, done that and now have the shirt. Honestly im struggling with this diary entry. Okbtoberfest is like nothing I have ever experienced and while there are a whole bunch of great things to write about, there are also a few disapointments.

Let me start with the good bits. We ended up sitting in a smaller tent to start with and I … the worlds biggest beer hater was stuck drinking litre steins because they didn’t have anything smaller … honestly she almost laughed at me when I asked for a smaller glass. The atmostphere is loud, boisterous with everyone determined to have fun. All of the tents and gardens we visited were decorated according to their theme and seemed to be well set out allowing for lots of people and seats. Dressing up proved to be the most fun - I got mistaken for a local german girl at least 4 times with one person eve telling me I was lying when I said in a very clear Australian accent that I was not german. It was great fun and to be honest, the outfits are so damn comfortable I was quite sad to be putting my jeans back on this morning. Overall I enjoyed the whole day including dressing up but there was one or two things I thought were either a little bit crazy or else could have been handled better.

First of all bathrooms. There were two ladies bathrooms for the entire garden we were in (nearly 1000 people) meaning if you did need to use the bathroom, which was frequently with the beer you had to wait in a line for over half an hour.

Secondly we were both surprised with just how busy it was. Everyone says it busy but I think we hit the perfect storm of busy. It is the second last day of the festival, it’s a public holiday weekend for the locals and it’s a perfectly sunny day. So it was amazingly freakishly busy and we were almost overwhelmed with the amout of people at the event.

Thirdly and please don’t take this the wrong way … the Italians. For some reason over 30% of Oktoberfest attendees were Italian and while up until now I have had nothing against them today really opened my eyes. The ones we met seem ogle and grope anything female and more than one girl in the bathroom line pulled their tops up because of the “Italian Pervs with their slippery hands”. I even had one guy walk up and take a picture of my boobs … im sorry but not cool boys.

Finally I am amazed at just how they serve anyone and everyone alcohol, no matter how drunk you are you still seem to be able to order and be given a drink. This means as you walk along the streets you see hundreds of rather drunk visitors passed out on the side of the road. Personally this shocked me more than anything else, they seem to be able to just lay down where ever they were and sleep it off.

As I said overall it was an awesome experience, would I come again… im really not sure, its so busy I don’t know if it would be worth returning just to sit in the one spot and drink beer. Am I glad I went and experienced it myself … hell yeah. Tomorrow its off to Berlin and im really looking forward to the history.