5 liters of beer, 2 roast chicken, 2 pork belly sandwiches, 1 schnitzel sandwich, 2 bratwurst and sauerkraut, 1 huge thing of doughy bread coated in warm vanilla cream sauce, 1 something I don’t know the name of coated in apricot compote, 1 chocolate-coated rasberry stick, 1 bag of sugar-coated walnuts (since I thought it would compensate for the lost brain cells from the beer, I kid you not), 1 bag of cinnamon-covered almonds, 2 sausage links, 1 jumbo pretzel, 1 large gingerbread cookie = Oktoberfest. I probably ate a lot more, but honestly, we’re all grown-ups here, I got way too drunk and don’t remember everything I ate.
I do know that I met a Swiss hockey team, a guy named Andy from New Zealand in the midst of traveling the world who bought us a round of beers and paid for all of our rides in the festival, met up with an old high school friend, a fair number of creepo Italian men, a group of Brazilians, fantastic new friends from Indiana dressed in their lederhosen, two British men dressed in a Sherlock Holmes outfit, pipe and all, and a questionable (in terms of gender) German woman we decided to call Dave.
My friends and I woke up at 5:45AM on our first day to go wait in line at Oktoberfest to get into the most famous beer haus called Hofbrau Haus. One friend and I got incredibly lucky and made it in and had a fantastic day, but some of my other friends weren’t as lucky (although I hope we made up for it on Sunday!!) I prosted, booted and rallied, found my way back home in Munich in the rain and on the metro although I have no idea how the fuck I remembered how to get back, went on a rollercoaster ride with five loopdie-loops, watched people chug liter after liter of beer, ripped my dirndl, laughed myself to tears as my friend freaked out on a ride, stole two Beer stein, and made it back to Paris with just under ten hours of sleep for three days total. Two days of madness – it was fucking insane. Calling it the biggest party in the world doesn’t do it justice. Greatest celebration of life and eating and drinking and people in the universe? Call me maybe.
Everytime somebody would chug a beer, they would get up on a table, and everybody would watch and cheer…greatest moments.
I wasn’t kidding about the two, full roast chicken…
As my friend so wisely put it, what happens at Oktoberfest, stays at Oktoberfest.
Where do you put it all?