I had possibly the most frustrating and the funniest night of my life Thursday night.

Laura and I had arrived at Munich Central Station Thursday morning and met up with her friends who I would be hanging out with for the next 24 hours. They too had caught the overnight train to Munich, however didn´t have quite as much drama as Laura and I disembarking from the train...

I think I´ve mentioned before just how much I love traveling in big groups! While it was a nice change to be traveling with other people, it doesn´t come without its dramas. The first was that no one had remembered to make of copy of the directions to the camping grounds. This ordinarily wouldn´t be such a problem - usually you can go to a tourist office and they´ll mark it on a map and send you on your way with a set of directions. I suggested this to the group - turns out that wouldn´t work, because we´re weren´t actually staying at a campsite. It was a horse arena converted into campsite. Visions of grassy droppings and port-a-loos that need to be hosed down with a gurney came to mind. I just hoped that they had cleared the ground before erecting each tent, otherwise we may end up sleeping on things that are soft and squishy that aren´t mattresses.

Laura had lost her passport and train pass. What a disaster. In our hurry to get off the train, we didn´t do a check of the cabin to make sure we´d picked up everything, What makes it worse is I can remember Laura talking about where she should put her passport and train pass to have it easily accessible when the conductor checks our tickets. She thought she should put it under the seat, but I remember telling her she should keep it tucked down her top or pants, so that it can´t get stolen. Losing her passport isn´t such a big deal - she has dual citizenship, so was traveling with a British passport as well (it´s easy to get passports replaced, and they´re covered by travel insurance as well). It´s losing her train pass that is a big deal - they´re worth about $1,000, and aren´t covered by travel insurance as they have no way of telling how many days of the pass had been used (you get 10 days of travel to use within two months, at a heavily discounted price). It seems that everyone in our group had had lost or had something stolen during their trips - cameras, passports, money. Micheal had even had his ENTIRE PACK stolen, and had to buy all new travel gear before his trip even really began! I haven´t lost or had anything stolen yet - I feel like I´m just biding my time until it does happen, because it seems like too much good luck that it hasn´t happened yet...

Our tents were actually quite nice - if we weren´t supposed to fit four fully grown (mostly) adults in each tent that looks like it was supposed to fit two people. Add to that three backpacks the size of seven year olds, and one backpack of a prepubescent teen (Brett was traveling with a wetsuit, flippers and filming equipment - he is a surf film maker). Although it wasn´t all bad - as none of us had bought sleeping bags or blankets, at least there would be a lot of body heat to share around!

After a quick cat nap (all piled on top of each other in our cozy tent) we decided we should check out this festival that we had all come so far to see - Oktoberfest. As I was meeting up with Kortine the next day, and they were also meeting up with more friends Friday, we thought we´d just go in to learn the ropes, and then make a big day of it the next day.

Every time I tell people I´m going to Oktoberfest, I always have the embarrassing confession to make that I don´t actually like beer - What?! You´re Australian and you don´t like beer! The funny thing is, most people say, well I can understand that, considering you all drink that horrible Fosters crap (FOSTERS is the only Australian beer that people know of over here! How embarrassing! I think we export it so that we don´t have to drink it ourselves!). Why was I going to a beer festival if I don´t even like beer? Why do Emos hang out at malls if they have no intention of going shopping? It´s for the social experience and atmosphere (and not unlike Emos, so I can laugh at people wearing funny clothes). But I HAD to drink a beer. I would choke that wet bread smelling liquid down and turn the empty stein upside down on my head just for the photo opportunity and bragging rights!

Oktoberfest is nuts. A crazy place to be.

From the outside, Oktoberfest looks just like a carnival - are families with small children, food stalls selling lots of different foods, and fast spinning rides so that those small children can throw up all that different food all over their families.

The only difference is that there are these huuuuuuge big tents that are set up along the edges - and that´s where all the real fun is had!

Now, these tents are crowded. They are extremely jam-packed with merry beer drinkers wearing funny hats and dresses so tight that their boobs look ready to pop like a cork from a heavily carbonated champagne bottle. The thing I liked best about these beer halls is the attitudes of its patrons - it is very crowded, there is beer being flung left right and centre, and yet everyone is still smiling. No one is getting angry and frustrated about queues or getting warm brew splashed in their face - instead they just sing hearty songs, toast to new friends, and grab the closest beer wench for an inappropriate photo with their mates.

We all had our theories as to how Oktoberfest came about - the most common being two guys sat down and started drinking. The next day four guys sat down together and started drinking. The next day eight guys sat down and starting drinking (you can see this is growing exponentially). Soon there were so many they though, hey, let´s go sit in that nice looking, perfectly placed tent over there and continue our merry drinking. And you get the picture. But in actual fact, Oktoberfest was the result of a royal wedding in Munich whose after party was so much fun that they decided to do the same thing the following year. And it pretty much just grew from there.

Our plans to ´learn the ropes´ that afternoon soon extended to ´join the party like a vetran´ - many steins of beer were consumed, many songs were sung, and much giggling was had on the ride home.

I was so proud of myself - I am still so proud of myself! I drunk an entire stein! Hooray for me! It took me about four hours - you can imagine the its temperature towards the end. Every mouthful I would tilt my head and consult the side of my glass to see exactly how much more of this foul torture I would have to endure before the bragging could begin. About halfway through I grabbed my mug and ran around to everyone saying, look! Look! Halfway!!! By that time the rest of my group were onto their second or their glass... But the fact still remains. I drank one litre of beer! And I definitely have the photos to prove it!

Each tent has its own live band set up in the middle that plays merry German drinking songs which encourage you go drink more and to, well, be more merry. While most of them were in German, that did not stop us from taking the liberty of making up our own lyrics and singing just as loudly and proudly as the locals. But our favourite song by far was ´Will you be my girl´ - and it appeared to also be a favourite with the Germans (whose pronunciation of some of the words made us all giggle). Everyone would jump up on their chairs and stamp their feet and sway merrily to the music. Even the one sober person in perhaps the entire tent (me, one beer doesn´t really knock you out, especially when consumed over four hours), still had a blast.

The night came to an end when two of the boys got so excited cheers-ing each other (Prost!) that they accidentally broke the bottom out of one of the mugs, sending beer flowing over the head of one giggling Liza (she thought everything was funny by that point, even beer shampoo). But this did not escape the attention of the security guards, who promptly (and very, very efficiently I must say) deposited the boys outside the tent. Oh well.

We decided to call it a night and find the boys outside the tent so we could make it back to the horse arena/campsite together. I left the girls in the capable hands of Brett (who had handled his beer a little better than they had) and went off to find Michael, one of the boys who had gotten kicked out but needed to come home with us. It didn´t take me long to spot him in the crowd. In an effort not to lose him from my sight, I started running towards him, only to slip on the rainy ground, and ended up slide tackling him from behind. He turned around and said, Hayley, chill out, I wasn´t going to run away. Very funny. But somehow we lost him again...

Liza had also cottoned onto the fact that the ground was slippery, and took great pleasure in going flopping in the arms of Brett and I so that she could be pulled along skidding and squealing with joy like a six year old.

We finally made it to the train station where Michael miraculously turned up again, along with the rest of our group. When the train arrived, Michael hadn´t realised that he needed to move up the platform like the rest of us had (he was down the end where the train doesn´t stop). However he realised a tad too late, and when he tried to board the train quickly, his leg ended up slipping down the gap between the platform and the train door (how though, I don´t know, considering how big his feet are!)! He managed to get up and on just in time before the doors closed, but spent the majority of the trip lying motionless on the floor of the train.

...And then he and Brett got off at the wrong stop...

I somehow managed to get the girls all home before braving the port-a-loo showers to wash off the stale beer-cigarette smell off of my skin before beginning our night in shared close quarters (I had hoped the others would do the same...). It was about seven degrees that night, and we didn´t have any mattresses to keep our bodies off of the cold ground, nor did we have any sleeping bags, except for the two Euro think fuzzy things Michael and Brett had picked up in Zagreb. So I piled on two sets of thermals, tights, jumpers and a coat (five layers in all), rolled up my big jacket as a pillow and hoped I could get some sleep.

I had fallen asleep in the tent before the others came in, and surprisingly (or not) didn´t even wake up until a short time later, when I turned over and saw Michael passed out with nothing but a beach towel providing warmth (a very funny sight, but perhaps you had to be there...). When Mims (the fourth occupant of our tent) arrived, we had all woken up and were very pleasantly surprised to see that she had bought with her a pink silk doona! Everyone was still a bit drunk by that stage, and I think that combined with the ridiculousness of our sleeping situation made anything that anyone said incredibly hilarious. I can´t even remember what any of the conversations were about! It made me laugh even more when I said, this has been one of the best nights of my life, and Michael responded with, I´ve always wanted to hear a girl say that to me!

The next morning I packed up my things (all the while clamoring over my still snoozing spooning buddies!) to check out so I could go meet Kortine and head to my five star hotel accommodation for the weekend. When I went into the administration tent to charge my mobile phone before I left, I was very displeased to find that we could have grabbed mattresses for free the night before. Oh well. I suppose I should have sent the group a message to let them know for the next couple of nights! That has honestly only just occurred to me. Ooops!

Talk to you soon!

Love Hayley x