Bier, Boobs & Bratwurst - Oktoberfest

As much as I hate to be a cliche... it had to be done.

Living in Europe, right next to Munich and not seeing an Oktoberfest just would not have been right.

I missed it last year as I had the joy of spending 3 weeks in the deserts of Libya.

So I was determined to get there this year. I was fortunate enough to organise it to hook up with a couple of mates who are living in the Netherlands and so we all arranged to meet and hit the tents together.

I didnt really know what to expect other than I'd ben told on many an occasion to expect a heap of drunk, loud, overly patriotic boozing Australians and a heap of oggling Italians.

And so I entered, with some intrepidation....

I'd imagined some poorly organised tents on some muddy grass and people passed out on the lawn.
I was pleasantly suprised. My assumptions were totally off.

We were also blessed with perfect weather.

We managed to secure a table in the outside beer garden for the day and continued to drink beer and eat roast chicken, pretzels and whatever else we could get our hands on. Chatted to a lot of mädls in busty dirndls and many incomprehensibly drunk blokes in lederhosen.

But there was much more to the day than just drinking wildly. There was a full carnival attached to the event with plenty for the family to do. Ranging from shooting galleries, food stalls and carnival rides.

There was also a very large portion of locals, other germans and austrians there to dilute out the tourist ratio. I spent most of my time, funnily enough, talking to Austrians due to the Vienna Kangaroos t-shirt I was wearing. But it's also a little ironic for me that after living in Austria for 15months, it's the first time i've actually been in a situation where Austrians were friendly and coming up to chat to me!

I even spoke to a group of 4 deaf austrians who lip read me. This was an extremeley interesting situation to be in! Not only was I a little tipsy but I still do get nervous with my spoken German. However, they seemed to understand me so I was extremely happy with my efforts to communicate in a foreign language to a group of deaf people.

We ended the evening inside a beer hall and my only complaint was the lack of air or venitallation. It was extremely warm, very smokey, and I dont actually think you could order anything to drink other than beer.

All in all I had a great day and wore a huge smile the whole day. I'll be trying to go back next year. Not for the beer, but for the festive happiness that permeated the entire day.

Prost!