oktoberfest...second time is a charm

blogging in germany is harder than one might think. the f-ing german computers hate me. anyway....back to the real news! so after our first feeble attempt to experience oktoberfest, we decided to go back and this time is was so much better! as i have said before, i think a lot of things are fate and our random seating in the tent was one of them. these three woman sat down next to us and immediately began to speak to us in flawless english. not only that, but the younger girl just returned from a home-stay program in the united states....and where was she in the united states you ask? ontario, california. about 10 minutes from where dan and it went to college! she was telling us how much she loved montclair plaza (the main shopping mall in the area) it was crazy!

needless to say, we shared some radishes and beer. yes, radishes. a random thing to eat, but evidently part of the bavarian tradition. after that fun encounter, we headed off on some rides and then back to the lowenbrau tent where we sat on the second story overlooking oktoberfest, it was beautiful. dan was considerably intoxicated by that time which made the entire scene much more fun.

one interesting part about oktoberfest is all the traditional aspects which the majority of germans follow. for instance they have these cookies which are made from gingerbread and have sayings written on the front of them in icing. you wear the cookies around your neck.....well the girls wear the cookies around their neck. they say things like .....oktoberfest, i love you, kisses, etc. we referred to them as love cookies, although we have no idea what they are really called. dan bought me one which says ``ich habe dich sooo lieb``....we think this means, i have so much love for you, but in reality we are not all that sure.

so all in all...oktoberfest was rad. Read more...

neuschwanstein castle

yesterday was simply amazing. i truly believe fate plays some type of roll in everything. perhaps reilly was supposed to eat my passport so i could not go to peru and instead i end up seeing
beautiful bavaria. we got up to go on a tour to neuschwanstein castle and when we got there, they
told us it was closed. however, dan somehow managed to charm his way onto the tour and by default
i got to go too. it was brilliant! the castle itself looks like it belongs in a fairytale. the
hike to the casle was almost better, directly through the german alps with scenic views of the
valley to one side and waterfalls to the other. our guide, valerie, was this hilarious british
woman and the best part was that she loved dan. he (of course) made some wise crack early on which
she thought was funny and he became her instant favorite. it was great because she gave us a lot
more historical information about the castle and king ludwig.

although i have greatly enjoyed munich, it made me really excited to get out of the big city and
see some of the smaller towns with less people. the weather has been fantastic, i feel as if i am
in southern california......but with more germans :) Read more...

Oktoberfest Take 1

message from jessica:

so i think i might be getting old. our flght to europe was not as easy as i remember and lack of
sleep combined with german beer made the entire situation that much worse. after getting one
night sleep and a fair amount of coffee, i was feeling prepared to brave oktoberfest. i knew i
was in for an interesting time after seeing 50 year old men in lederhosen stumbling out of the
gates singing in german at the top of their lungs.

walking into the largest beer tent at the festival, schottenhammel, i could not have imagined so
many people in one collapsable tent. with over 500 tables surrounding a band in the middle, the
place was packed without a vacant seat to be found. those more rowdy attendees where literally
dancing on their seats or tables swinging giant steins of beer. speaking of the steins........the
waitresses carry about 15-20 steins at one time! and believe me, they do not take kindly to dumb
tourists walking aimlessly in their way.

after a short and kinda frustrating attempt to find seating, we ended up leaving and just heading
to a bar down the street. i am certainly not brave enough to ask a group of rowdy germans to
kindly move over and make room for the american tourists.

as for today, we are headed to neuschwanstein castle approximately, 2 hours outside munich. i will
fill you all in later about it. hope you are all well. cheers!

a message from daniel thomas.....

The highlight of my evening was a food and beer tour that took us to the oktoberfest museum where
we learned the history of the festival and sampled the different kinds of German beer. Working for
Yard House I was obviously intrigued at how beer is such a part of Bavarian culture. People
respect the tradition of beer here and, although there were several people who drank too much at
oktobefest, everyone was so happy. All I could keep thinking was how a festival like this in the
states would probably result in rioting and fighting. Here eveyone has too much reverance and
people are happy drunks! Anyhow, we ended the tour at the beer pub where hefeweizen was born and
my enthusiasm was shown in how fast by beer(s) seemed to disappear. We met a couple from New
Zealand and spent the rest of the night drinking and sharing stories with them. We found out that
they were going on a 'Ghost Tour' of the city to its supposedly haunted places. We decided to join
them. It was not scary. It went something like this: 'This used to be an evil torture chamber.
It's not here anymore but it was on this spot.' You know that when a tour is free and every German
walking by is mocking your guide it detracts from the horrific ambiance. After several jokes in
Jessica's ear about how scary the 'Puma` store she was trying not to ruin everyone´s
terrifying moment but couldnt stop laughing. So we did what any responsible American would do and
decided to sneak away from the tour with our new Kiwi friends and drink more beers. All in all...
a great evening. Read more...