que sera, sera.: oktoberfest chronicles

disclaimer: trying to sum up my oktoberfest experience is going to be nearly impossible, but i'll give it a shot.

we didn't leave madrid until friday evening, which got us into the munich airport at around 9pm. i wrote down the directions to where we were staying from a student travel website so i figured they'd be safe and accurate. we were successful at finding the train we needed to take from the airport and following directions, got off at the Daglfing stop. little did we know that this train station was apparently abandoned and surrounded by...um...nothing. we luckily chose the direction farthest from the train tracks where murder scenes are filmed and found the bus stop. we of course had to ask 13 year old drunk girls if it was the right one and had no other choice but to trust them. after getting off the bus, there were no signs directing us toward weisn camp. no, thats not the name of a random german concentration camp, thats the name of where we would be residing for the weekend. lucky for four girls living in madrid, we stumbled upon a german man who spoke spanish rather than english and he pointed us in the dimly lit, but right direction. after walking for what seemed like forever, we finally made it.

after checking in and being laughed at when i asked if we could lock our tents, (the woman assured me if anyone wanted to steal anything, they would use a knife,) we threw down our sleeping bags and attempted to get a few hours of sleep. key word being attempted. 45 minutes was about as good as it got. waking up at 5am to get to the festivities early enough may sound absurd, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. i did not pay 300$ for a flight to munich just to sleep. we decided to go to the german tent rather than the american one for the purpose of really immersing ourselves in the culture. we sat at a table with some new american besties we made while standing on top of each other in line and the drinks started coming. at 9am. with pretzels. the next 6 hours of my saturday are a blur of beer, lederhosen, and german songs. needless to say, i wish i could have stayed there forever. after realizing that my body, and my wallet, couldn't handle another 10 euro beer, we went outside into the sunlight for the first time since we had arrived in munich. (believe it or not, the sun is barely up at 6am.) i wish i would tell you i remember eating pretzels on sandwiches on sausages, and riding an enormous german ferris wheel, but i honestly didn't know any of that transpired until i looked at pictures the following day.

after a solid 7 hours of drinking and frolicking around, we made our way back to weisn camp. that night's sleep was practically a beer induced coma, and it was just what i needed. sadly, the next morning we had to wake up early and make our way back to the munich airport, thus ending the longest and most unreal 24 hours of my life. i honestly don't know how people can do the whole oktoberfest thing two days in a row. i for one wouldn't be able to hang, because i'm pretty sure i'm still recovering. #strugglebus.

all in all, i left my heart in munich. but i'm pretty sure this weekend in barcelona i'll find it again.

photos courtesy of shannon because i know you've already stalked mine: