we were ridiculously early for our flight the next day and chilled in the airport for a while. nicole and klausner were on our flight as well so it was nice to have a little crew there to wait with. we flew lufthansa and literally it was the best flight i've ever taken. it was only about 2 hours or so and i sat next to jess chatting it up about life the whole way but the best part was not only did we get a complimentary meal including chicken, pasta, bread, and cookies, we also got unlimited free drinks. so of course we started the german beer drinking as early as possible. after a delightful flight we got off the plane and it was immediately noticeable how fresh and clean the air was. it was still so hot in spain when we left it was so refreshing to have cooler weather. we went to the subway and also even when i was in madrid i was expecting some part about traveling on subways in foreign cities to be difficult but everything here is infinitely more efficient its silly how easy it was to navigate everything. so we were casually waiting at the subway stop for the next train when all of a sudden wheeler goes "jessie....." and by some freak chance miracle jessie who had landed an hour or so before us just happened to walk to the subway station at that exact moment. so convenient. and so we all went to our respective hotels to check in and shower and explore and then meet up with everyone later from there.
there were a ton of tulane kids at oktoberfest this weekend. i have no idea how it worked out like that but it was amazing. i hadn't seen most of them since may and it was just the craziest and most exciting thing to be with everyone in germany. a ton of people were staying at the wombat hostel so we walked over there hoping to find people which low and behold right when we walked in ran into a bunch of the madrid/prague kids. que suerte, no? seriously this whole weekend having zero communication with anyone has just made me realize everything always works out. anyway so we stayed for happy hour to hang out "just for a little"......we never left. everyone from tulane ended up coming to the wombat as well because they had a bar with a happy hour and it was just too much fun we all stayed there the whole night. going into this weekend i knew i was really there for oktoberfest and a tulane reunion so i was fine with how the weekend went in terms of exploring Germany. we walked home later in the night to rest up for a big day starting at 7 am.
the next morning we woke up super early, ate breakfast at the hotel, walked to the wombats and ran into a bunch of tulane kids on their way out. made it to oktoberfest and waited in all these random lines in dreary weather. at around 8:30 am we saw them shovel in the last big group of people that were in a line we were in before they moved us to a different one. that was the last big group of people they let into the hoftbrau haus for the rest of the day. so all of us continued to wait in a crowded line in the freezing rain for the next 5 hours. just to get an idea of how pleasant i was during this time, i was incredibly claustraphobic, a bit hungover, and feeling not so great. so at probably around 9 am or so.... i was the first person so barf at oktoberfest before any of the drinking even started (we were there the first day so the first keg wasn't even tapped til noon). great start to my weekend. so once we sat for a while, ate a bit and drank some water, we braced the completely overcrowded line again only to be yelled at in german (scariest language to be yelled at in). after about 2 hours like this klausner and i had a bit of a psychotic break and decided we would rather just get out of line find some of the boys we were with and try to drink outside. honestly timing is everything. we went to the bathroom and couldn't find the boys and i randomly ran into an australian man i had met earlier through some other tulane girls. he stopped me and was like do you wanna get in for 5 euros? (which i didnt pay) and we said hell. yes. klausner and i managed to grab segolene and rachel and the australian led us in with some workers he had paid off. i literally think that at that moment i felt euphoria. i was ready to give up on the day, completely soaked to the bone, so sick and upset, but once we finally got in it was 100% worth it.
me being a wench during the first few hours of oktoberfest
completely delusional, soaking wet, and the happiest we've ever been, thanks australian!
after this we walked around the hoftbrau haus which was huge and totally overwhelming and it took everything in me to hold back legitimate tears of joy. we wandered around hoping to run into the tulane people who had been in there since 7 am and if not just finding a place to sit and have a beer when suddenly i feel a tap on my shoulder only to turn around and see brandon, from tulane also studying in granada with me, and i think this was the happiest i had ever been to see someone in my entire life. i latched onto him immediately and made him hold me until i had sufficiently soaked him from the residual rain i was drenched in. once brandon had led us to where all the tulane kids were i was ready to finally start the oktoberfest festivities. beers were 10 euros and let me tell you do you get a bang for your buck. i just found out to today that there was really 3.5 beers in each huge mug they gave you which explains why two of them were more than sufficient for me. i ordered two off the bat because i deserved it for being in the rain for that long. after about an hour everyone that we had been waiting outside with had managed to sneak in as well and we were all inside dry(ish) and having a grand ol' time. there was so much singing and dancing on tables (this was one of my favorite parts, spaniards are so uptight about being on surfaces you're not supposed to so to be able to dance on a table again was such a liberating feeling) and meeting new friends from places like norway and finland it was amazing. 
the best and the worst decision i've ever made all in one
at 3 oclock they kick everyone out of the tables because they're reserved for important people apparently. so as the scary german beer maids and security guards were rushing us out somehow a group of us decided no way are we leaving this place to go back in the rain we waited too long outside for that. so we just walked around and dodged all the scary germans and hid in the middle of the tent and in the bathrooms until everything died down. we found a place to stand at the tables without benches and continued the festivities. ella and i befriended one of the beer maids and bonded over waiting tables of course. these ladies could carry like 10 of these huge mugs at once and my hands were sore just from holding one. once we decided to find everyone and leave it was nice outside again. we went back to the wombats cause that was a safe meeting point and here and there found people coming in and out of the place. at this point we were all feeling pretty splendid and i think i must have had about 6 h2h's with different people about life and family and boyfriends and whatever seemed meaningful at the time. it was lovely did a lot of unnecessary but pretty hysterical catching up.
as it started to get later i realized i couldn't get in contact with anyone cause my iphone didn't work and i didn't have my spanish phone. we had lost jessie and ella so katie and i tried to find them. we found ella in someone elses wombats room and went to the other wombats room looking for jessie. couldn't find her so instead just decided to try and rally everyone to have a night and go back out in munich. once i had put forth all this effort and got a bunch of people to follow me we braced the city of munich expecting something grand. almost nothing was open or nearby and finally just resorted to shawarma. went back to the wombats and had somehow lost katie but once again found brandon who was apparently my guardian angel this weekend. went back to his room with all his friends and luckily the people katie had been with came back there too. we somehow got convinced to stay there at the wombats instead of walking home so late. i "slept" on the tile floor on daniel's vest for a few hours and woke up at 6 am when someone was leaving for the airport, simultaneously katie woke up and we knew we had to get back to our hotel. we walked back at the crack of dawn and it was actually a lovely walk. when we got back jessie and ella were both there and we were all just too excited to be together again. we all showered (so necessary) and ate breakfast and made our way back to oktoberfest.
katie and i taking some selfies with the german dudes
fun souvenirs from german dudes
we met up with everyone else on the lawn behind the hoftbrau haus and just laid around and snapped pictures of passed out people and frolicked around in the grass. we were all the happiest people in the entire world and we literally just sat around and giggled for what seemed like a few hours. after a little bit of this we decided to go on some rides. we went on one that i had spotted from the lawn really far away. it swung all the way up in the air and upside down and back down again. it was the best ride in the whole place cause from the top you could see all of oktoberfest and munich and still got the enjoyment and rush of a really fun, fast ride. from there we decided to explore a few other tents where i was mistaken for a german person and yelled at in german which was interesting. in the other tents if you weren't wearing a dirndl or a lederhosen you were completely out of place so we just ended going back to the hoftbrau haus. somehow everyone got split up again and it was just me and katie playing with little kids outside of bumper cars. after a little while when the parents were probably sufficiently creeped out by us we decided to head back to the hotel because it was getting dark and late anyway. of course on the way we made a stop at mcdonald's where i managed to drop my entire tray, get laughed at, pick it all back up, and proceed to eat it. we made it safely back to the hotel probably around 10 pm. actually i made that up i definitely had no concept of time the entire weekend, but it was on the earlier side.
the happiest people to ever live
so getting up the next morning at 6 am and making it to the munich airport all on my own was one of my prouder moments but i was very sad to say goodbye to the weekend. so to sum up oktoberfest it was probably one of, if not the best, weekend of my life. we had so much fun, so much beer, so many heart to hearts, so much good food, and all around just an amazing time spent with so many amazing people. it was probably my most expensive trip but it was worth every last penny and then some. everything worked out no matter how wrong things could have gone we were all safe and all were where we needed to be at all time. we all managed to always find each other and had such a blast. this will most certainly go down as my craziest trip but i knew going into it that this was what oktoberfest was for. i promise that my other trips will be filled with more cultured experiences, but as for german culture, i don't think i could have done anything more german. and let me tell you, we killed it in germany. could not have asked for a better weekend and definitely a successful first trip! next up: lagos, portugal!
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