Beers, Babes and Bavaria

Well the beer drinking began before we had even boarded the plane with an intended quite night out at the Walkabout, now it has to be said I don’t frequent this place (despite evidence in past blogs) but it seems to be the thing I do before I board a plane, even though I absolutely loath the place. On wakeing both Rodrigo and myself where hit with the worst hangovers we have both ever had, was really quite strange both of us having the same symptoms when we didn’t really drink that much. Well it lingered around all day and having to fly, train and walk to the campsite and upon arrival put up 100 tents in searing heat was not really the best conditions for shaking it. Now I don’t just go around pitching tents for fun we managed to hook up with another tour company and help out for food accommodation and beer!, kind of like Pamplona but without the beer and less work

Well after passing out in out tents and missing half of the briefing it was time to meet up with everyone working there. Too say the least they where in interesting group, about 25 of us with the majority Aussie and so much testosterone in the air you could cut it with a knife. So after the pushups with included claps and the conversations about anal leakage we’d pretty much worked the group out and headed to bed, although they weren’t all wankers there where some pretty cool people among them.

It was up at 7am the next day to pitch the rest of the tents, only a couple of hundred which managed to take all day then as night fell the drinking games begun with the obligatory pack of nudy cards and the madness begun. When I was enquiring about working for the group he mentioned there would be a couple of free beers but in fact it was one better with a whole fridge of cold ones and pretty much as much as you can drink, nothing better than getting pissed for free.

Having finished most of the work the previous day Roddy and I headed into Munich city too have a look around. It was Rodrigo’s first time in Germany and as I already knew the women are all beautiful and it didn’t disappoint, absolutely gorgeous, the lot of em. We managed to stumble into a bank with what we thought was a drawing table and Rodregio started sketching out a drawing of him and I which was originally meant to have us holding a couple of beers until a shocked bystander asked if we knew it was for the Pope and we said of course we did and quickly made amends to us holding our hands up, personally I like the original idea and surly the Pope would, hell he’s got his own beer brand in Germany.
It also sporned the idea of heading off to Switzerland to see our mate Charlie who use to live in London and getting away from the campsite.
Upon returning to the campsite the drinking had begun and to be allowed to drink you had to lick mayo of a dildo (can’t you just feel that testosterone), needless to say I was thirsty and it had to be done as we all did, I still can’t help but wonder where the hell it came from though??
After the shirt naming ceremony, where I was named ‘doggy’ (I can’t remember how this came about) and Roddy named ‘Wax Off’ (which is actually quite clever when you think about it) it was then time to go on an all you can drink pub crawl around Munich famous beer gardens and meet our new friend the ‘stine’. Its all quite strange how the night panned out, one minute where chatting away to this group of Aussie girls then on the way to the next garden Roddy and I got split up but still had our respective girls, weather or not we went to the same beer garden I have no idea, then while moving to the next garden I loose the whole group and stumble into Rodrigo who was also lost, so in our drunken haze headed back to the campsite. While we were in Munich city we decided to head to Zurich the next day and leave the campsite and the free booze, a tough decision it was.

We decided to hitchhike from Munich to Zurich, that was before we went on the pub crawl and once the morning hit and feeling rather shady we thought it might be just easier to go some other way cheap! International travel from Germany to Switzerland turns out to be quite expensive, like 70 Euros for a 4 hour train ride!!! But as we where eating our German sausage bread some lovely lady saw us painting our ‘Zurich’ sign and suggested it would be easier to train it to Linadau on the border to Austria and much cheaper because it’s still in Germany. Now who would have thought there was a big arse lake down there with Switzerland, Austria and Germany on it. The thing was we had no idea where the hell Switzerland was and upon asking the rail man he kept on saying Austria and where like no, Switzerland. Turns out you have to go through Austria to get to Switzerland, who would have thought. Upon reaching Linadau we walked out of town to what we thought was the main road out when I man wearing a beer carrier on his head picked us up, clearly stoned off the planet he drove us closer to the border where we waited and waved our sign until another car pulled over…this time the police.
I didn’t realise and started to pick up my backpack and throw it in the back when I noticed his pistol and thought this ain’t right. Wells turn out they were friendly chaps and didn’t search out bags for drugs and firearms and told us a better road to get a lift to Zurich. So there we are standing on a German road waiting for a car load of Swiss girls going to a foam party to pick us up. No Swiss girls came but a Tom Cruise look alight did in his Mercedes decided to give us a lift all the way to Zurich when he wasn’t even going there himself!!! We even took him too the pub to buy him some beers and he paid for all of us! Ahhhh I love Germans.

So we made it all the way and caught up with our mate Charlie and it was still just early evening, it was off to Charlie’s house with a crate of beers to catch up and get ready for a night in Switzerland. Well Charlie did tell us that it was the total opposite to London, where instead of having one girl and a load of guys; in Switzerland there are groups of girls and no guys, what a wonderful place! Well a long night short; beautiful girls, expensive drinks and ended up at the other end of Zurich on the other side of the big lake with no money but did manage to sleep in a comfy bed, ohhhh so much better than the hard ground. The problem though was not lack of money as she paid my way home but the fact I had no idea where home was as we had arrived when it was dark. Thankfully I had a used train ticket in my pocket with the station name on it. After 2 hours of mindless travelling round Zurich looking for home I made it and turns out Rodrigo was still out and ‘lost’, seems like Charlie was the only one that went home the night before, I feel kinda bad about that.

After we had all made it back home we decided to go check out the Alps, so after grabbing a case of beer we headed on the first train east to where we thought the alps where; turns out they where further away than we anticipated so made a detour for Zurich Lake where we went for a swim in the chilly but crystal clean waters and swam amongst the swans. After polishing off our Swiss cheese, German sausages and beer we bordered the ferry for Zurich City. After being on the ferry for about an hour and only halfway it was getting kind of boring plus it was cold and dark, so we hoped off and jumped on a train where we managed to get fined for not having a ticket and sitting in first class, of course we didn’t have the 80 Franks on us each so instead they drained out wallets of both Euros and whatever Franks we had. They must have had some kind of ticket blitz that night as we where checked 4 times, but upon flashing our fine they took pity and let us continue. It was a cost I didn’t really need as my bank account was rapidly depleting and we hadn’t even got to Oktoberfest yet!
Friday night was a relatively cruisy night just heading out to a wicked underground bar for some laid back tunes and then having an early one in my sleeping bag in the attic on the wooden floor, nice.
I can’t even remember what we did on Saturday but Saturday night was planned as a biggie with the idea of heading to Zurich’s clubbing corner but beforehand some pre drinking turned into full on drinking games and needless to say my aces just weren’t showing up and I was well gone before even leaving the house. Upon meeting up with Loo, Rodgerio’s new girl, we jumped into a cab to what is the biggest club in Zurich apparently, Q Bar. Well it’s all a bit hazy but from what I can gather the line up was massive and we didn’t have any ID so never made it in, so ended up at a Latino bar at first which was; well, sedate and then to another bar playing old school rock classics which was well good and a good laugh.

Sunday was a day of rest and recovery and just veged out and watched some DVD’s, the plan was to catch a bus back to Munich that night but upon finding out the price and that fact that it got in at midnight and we where planning to camp in the park we decided to catch some rest and hitchhike back in the morning.

Monday morning rolls up and we set off on out journey back to Munich under a bridge leading to the motorway on a rainy day in Zurich where a delivery driver takes up to St Gallen, the next major town towards the Austrian border where he droped us off on the main motorway. We figure that this is a prime position as most of the traffic on the motorway is heading out of Switzerland, unfortunately the police didn’t as whilst standing there we hear sirens blaring and lights a flashing on the other side of the road and then across the overpass to eventually come and pull up beside us. They couldn’t speak a word of English and we just played dumb tourist and walked back up the onramp. We must have been in this spot for an hour when the same guy who had dropped us off there came back to see weather we had picked up a lift and offered to drive us to the border where nearly all traffic is heading to Germany. So after about 30 minutes at the border crossing a German art student offered to drive us just to the outside of Munich to the town where she lived and it hadn’t even been 1 minute since she had dropped us off before a Austrian guy offered to drive us near the area where we where wanting to camp.
It was so bloody easy and some really cool people, except for the Austrian guy, he was a bit weird but friendly none the less.
We managed to arrive back in Munich at around 3pm so enough time to find ourselves a campsite alongside the river. Unfortunately after walking the banks of the river for about an hour looking for a suitable spot we came up with nothing. The bush wasn’t really that dense to hide our tent and there where dirt tracks everywhere so we headed back to the original campsite before heading out for our first taste of Oktoberfest.

I had no idea what to expect, was thinking big marquees serving beer with a few rides and that. Boy was I wrong, these beer tents are proper building that are absolutely massive and the festival ground is like a theme park with tons of rides of all sorts. Getting there around 9pm we made our way to the Paulander tent as we had discovered it was the strongest beer and set upon finding a table to sit at. The thing with Oktoberfest is that they won’t serve you unless you’re sitting at a table, which actually makes perfect sense as the tent will never get overcrowded. Unfortunately for us the hall was packed as people where waving there stines in the air and dancing on the chairs, so finding a table was near impossible until a group of Aussie girls waved us down to join there table and before long where catching up to the rest of them. Since we got there so late we only had a couple of hours drinking time at is closes at 11pm, so it was time to head back to the campsite to continue the party, where we met up with a few people from the original tour crew until we drank the beer vending machine dry.

Well Tuesday was our Oktoberfest day, our only full day at the festival so we got in there early and after a couple of rides sat ourselves down at what was now out tent, the Paulander tent! The day just screamed past and we didn’t even leave the tent the whole day. First we bumped into those Aussie girls which was all a bit weird, then we where moved to another table with a German family as the table we where at was reserved and what an interesting family they where. The wife started hitting on Rodrigo while the husband was egging her on, then she took her pierced nipples out and tried to tongue him, all a bit weird really, but hilarious after about that point I don’t really remember what happened except that the family left and I had a new lot of younger Germans at the table and didn’t even realise that Roddy had disappeared. I was really expecting the place to be packed out with tourists and not the locals which was a pleasant surprise, although there was a tent that is just for Aussies etc aptly named the Pig Pen. Have no idea how I got home but managed somehow as I woke to a new morning, our final day in Germany before we headed back to London.

So we packed our bags in the morning and headed to the festival; backpack, tents and all to have our final stines. Well I got a bit too excited and drunk I bit too much and Roddy had to drag me away to make sure we made the plane on time (which we did mind you) but as we where having a beer at the airport an announcement came over the speaker with my name. Apparently I had lost my boarding pass in the airport and they had it!
Fuck I didn’t even know I’d lost it, thankfully they had found it and on the plane we went, I don’t think I would have been too worried if they didn’t let me board without a boarding pass, I just love Germany.

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/1916207