What's not to love about Bavarian culture? Giant bratwurst, giant pretzels and of course giant beers and what better way to celebrate them than in giant beer tents surrounded by rides and drunk Germans dressed in lederhosen.

We arrived in Munich from Switzerland in the afternoon, checked into our hostel and headed straight for the festival. Nothing can prepare you for the atmosphere of Oktoberfest. It's like a magical beer drinking wonderland. When you first walk in it looks like the royal show with food stalls, sideshows and rides all lit up like christmas trees, except the first carousel didn't have horses to sit on, instead there were bar stalls slowly rotating around a central bar. Our first stop was a few of the crazy spinning rides to get the adrenalin pumping, we figured probably best to do these sooner rather than later when we have a belly full of booze. Three rides later and we were pumped for some serious beer drinking so we headed for the famous beer halls. Now Jarrod had told me about the beer tents and how enormous they are, he wasn't lying they are even more impressive first hand. I think there were 9 different major breweries all up, each decorated in their chosen theme. It seems no expense was spared in the interior decoration department, money well spent in my opinion. My favourite was definitely the Hippodrom with its toffee apple coloured ribbons and carousel horses hanging from the ceiling, but they were all amazing and had an awesome atmosphere with german beer songs playing and people standing on chairs and tables dancing and 'cheersing' or should I say 'Prosting'! The only thing possibly more impressive than the beer halls were the beer wenches and more specifically their ability to carry up to 10 full litre steins. One of these things is heavy enough to hold let alone 10 of them, none of which you get to drink!

Unfortunately arriving later in the day means most of the halls are chockers and people have gotten very comfortable at their tables so we struggled to find a seat. We ended up at a table outside for our first beer and were shortly joined by a father and his son, who looked to be about 8 years old. We watched as he proceeded to order from one of the beer wenches who returned shortly with a litre stein that she placed in front of dad and a half full stein that was placed in front of son. The glass was as big as his head. He was struggling to lift it. Hilarious!

After downing our first litre we moved on to another hall that were serving standing patrons, which most don't do, so we pulled up stumps behind a table full of old German men and put our drinking shoes on. It wasn't long before we were singing along with them, although we were making up our own words, standing on chairs dancing and clinking glasses yelling 'Prost'. My German roots were definitely starting to come out.

It wasn't until we were walking down the main street to leave that I realised my camera was missing. I handed my bag to Jarrod and told him to stay put as I headed back to the tent to look for it. After scouring the area where we were sitting I realised it was long gone. I headed back to where I had left Jarrod, only Jarrod wasn't there. I did a few laps up and back on the main street and to the entrance where we had decided to meet if we lost each other. Nothing. I couldn't find him anywhere. I was in a new city with no phone, no money, no idea which direction the train station was and no boyfriend! It wasn't long before the panic and the drunken emotion took hold and I started crying. Finally a German guy came to help offering his phone to call mine. No answer. So he took me to the train station where I got the tube back to the hostel. Not over yet, the security guard wasn't going to let me in as I didn't have the ID card the hostel had given me, so I turned on the water works once more and he escorted me up to our room but wouldn't give me a key. No Jarrod here either. I was woken up at about 5am when he came into the room minus a wallet. After falling asleep somewhere outside the festival someone had pickpocketed it so he went to the police station to file a report. I asked "have you got my handbag?" to which he replied "did I have your handbag?". I spent the next hour in the lobby firstly trying to convince the security guard to let me use the phone and then when he did trying to get through to VISA and MasterCard to cancel everything. Not fun!!

The following day was just as hectic. The original plan was to head back to Oktoberfest to get a table in the morning, instead we spent most of the day at the police station and on the phone. By about 4:30pm we had finally cancelled everything and ordered emergency cards so of course we headed back to Oktoberfest. After all we had nothing left to steal! We weren't quite as festive as the previous night, as you would imagine, but we still had a good time.

Our stay in Munich was brief and the events left a bit of a sour taste in our mouth but I would still come back to Oktoberfest in a heart beat!

Prost!