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I was staying with my friend Kortine for a week in Heidelberg - Kortine is this awesome German chick that I had meet through Couchsurfing earlier this year. She was traveling Australia solo for ten months, working here and there, and had stayed at our house for the first time in April. I say ´for the first time´ because we had had so much fun together that she decided to come back two more times! We had BBQs, taught her how to play cricket, had fish and chips up Mt Coot-tha, played Taboo (in which Kortine was at an unfortunate disadvantage!). My housemates loved her, unlike the two French girls we later hosted, who didn´t really want anything to do with anyone.
I was really looking forward to meeting up with her - while it was fun and exciting meeting new people while traveling, it was nice to know I´d be spending some time with a close friend. Kortine and I are proof that Couchsurfing can be such a positive experience, and you make such wonderful friendships (so everyone, please stop stressing, ok?).
...And it doesn´t come without additional benefits! Before we headed to Heidelberg, Kortine and I would first spend the weekend in Munich with her best friend Astrid, in the beautiful five star hotel, Le Meridian. Lucky me!
Kortine had told me that she and Astrid had bought dirndls to wear to Oktoberfest - you know the ones? Those traditional Bavarian dresses, which are usually worn with the aforementioned champagne popping boobs (I think I was at a disadvantage, not having enough cleavage to even muster lemonade popping boobs)? So, not wanting to be the odd one out, I set out Friday morning in search of my very own dirndl (I would definitely fit in with the locals at Oktoberfest now!). I met Kortine at the train station that afternoon, black and red dirndl in hand, thoroughly excited with my purchase. What an awesome souvenir! I was already picturing the conversations at the numerous fancy dress parities where I would take every opportunity to wear and talk about my awesome dirndl..
Year 2020...
Me - Wow, I love your costume! Aardvark, hey? What an original idea for a ´A´ themed party...
Aardvark - Yeah, I like your costume too. What exactly are you?
Me - Authentic-Bavarian beer maid. It´s authentic, you know? Bought authentically in Munich in 2008. Did I tell you about the time I traveled Europe solo for five months? Ahhh, the good old days. I drank an ENTIRE litre of beer, you know? That´s 1,000 millilitres! I even stood on a table and sang German beer songs while challenging locals to pretzel eating contests! Many crazy times were had in this authentic dress, many authentic crazy times. (reminisce, reminisce, reminisce).
Aardvark - *snore* Zzzzzzzzzz
Me - Aardvark, you´re drooling on Adrian the Ant!
I´m sure the conversations will include many more exaggerations... Let´s hope I can still fit into it or the dream will be ruined!
Other possible conversation...
Year 2030...
Me - Well, you could always wear my dirndl...
Daughter - Mum! I am sick of wearing your stupid German get-up to my friends costume birthday parties! You won´t even let me take up the hem!
Me - Yous should be excited! I had many crazy times in that dress, you know? Lots of fun! I drank my first litre of... apple juice in that dress! I even stood on a table and sang-
Daughter - ...German songs while challenging locals to pretzel eating contests! I know! You need a new story to tell, Mum!
I look forward to it!
Kortine and headed to the hotel to meet her friend Astrid and to get ready for that evening´s beer celebrations. Kortine was shocked to discover exactly how short her dress was - but she looked amazing! Kortine is 180cm tall, with this great smile and golden blonde hair - needless to say we got lots of whistles and comments on the street as we walked from the hotel to the Oktoberfest grounds! Woo woo Kortine!
That evening was a lot different to my Oktoberfest experience the night before. Instead of buying litres of beer at ten Euros each, we were actually in a special VIP section organised by Astrid´s father, where we were sipping iced Moet from special commemorative Oktoberfest mugs (which Astrid´s brother Torsen and his mate Hanno swiped for us later that night!) - and we weren´t even paying for them! Astrid and her father were so generous, I felt so lucky to be in their company over the weekend. We had a really great meal (meat for the Germans, kartoffel - potatoes - for the vegetarian...) while listening to the live band play ongoing drinking songs. The night before my friends and I had been making up the words to the drinking songs just so we could feel like we fit in, but tonight I had authentic Germans to teach me the words! My favourite (and the only one I could remember) went a little something like this (Kortine, please ignore my bad spelling and/or pronunciation!)
Ein Proooosich, ein Prooooosich! Gemuchligch kite!
Ein Proooosich, ein Prooooosich! Gemuchligch kite!
(repeat as long as you are still able to stand upright!)
Just found out that it´s actually Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit, not my funny version... (thanks Hanno!).
The girls introduced me to a new way of drinking beer - half beer, half lemonade. Genius! That way I could legitimately say I drank beer at Oktoberfest, without that horrible taste like someone had taken my Vegemite sandwich and dunked it in moldy water before chucking in in a blender and getting me to drink it!
I´m loving traveling in Germany. I gives me the best opportunity to bust out my German - I´ve been going whole days where I will only speak German in public (
After some more merry beer drinking, we all piled into a cab and headed to an after party held at this club called P1. Luckily Hanno was waiting at the door for us to get us in quickly, and we were arm banded, allowing us access to the special VIP section (again!) where we were fed champagne, and Red Bull and vodkas from these gigantic oversized bottles (so big that a guy had to hold the champagne over his shoulder to pour it!). The music they played was great! A mix of interesting Europop and English classics (think everything from ACDC to B52´s). We were dancing around on the couches, bumping into people left right and centre (but no one seemed to care!), and had an amazing time! I got to meet lots of Astrid´s and Kortine´s friends from Hamburg, and even tried busting out some bad German on them! Still tired from my interesting camping experience the night before, I decided to call it a night around 2:30am, and was shortly after followed by Astrid and Kortine.
Saturday was very lazy - we had great plans to check out the Oktoberfest carnival in the afternoon before heading into the beer hall for another crazy, beer-tacular night! But. here´s how our day actually went down...
We didn´t get out of bed until 1pm (whoops!). Torsen and Hanno then came in and regaled us with the antics of their night, and much giggling and joking was had in German (me just sitting and laughing along with the rest of them trying to understand random words here and there, Kortine attempting to translate in between laughter). We then ordered room service (burgers and chips, mmmmm, nutrition...) and lazed around in our pajamas for a little while longer. We then washed the beer out of our hair and ventured outside in an attempt to find Astrid a groovy pair of leiderhosen for her to wear that night, but returned empty handed bar the awesome commemorative Oktoberfest shot glasses the girls bought. We then braved putting on our stinky dirndls (they really did smell terrible!) and caught a cab to meet the boys at this pizza place for dinner before hitting the beer tents.
But...
We couldn´t get a table at the pizza joint, so caught a cab back to the hotel for more room service and funny German conversation. And so we sat in our dirndls, we ate pasta and watched Gossip Girl episodes on my tiny laptop before falling asleep quite early. Quite the Oktoberfest experience...
This beer business really takes it out of you!
The boys had arrived days ago to find cute little Oktoberfest themed rubber duckies waiting for them - and yet we had no cute little plastic animals awaiting our arrival. Well, this was just not good enough. Hanno complained three times (how annoying are we?) before we got a knock at our door. I answered the door to find a young lady holding a silver platter in front of her. ¨I have ducks for you!¨, she said. And then proceeded to count three little rubber ducks out into my hands - eins, zwei, drei! We had a christening session later that night - Franz, Fritz and Frederick, and Helga and Henrietta.
On our last day in Munich Kortine and I decided we really should check out the Oktoberfest carnival before we left - I was really keen to wear my dirndl again (I´m not going to get many other opportunities!), but Kortine felt it was a bit nippy to be bearing her legs so early in the morning. We wandered around, ate some carnival food, went on a spinney ride that went upside down, around, sideways, etc. Bought a toffee apple, decided that we had better eat the toffee apple later (our stomachs were still in motion). We then met up with Hanno, who was going to drive Kortine and I the four hour trip back to Heidelberg.
...Seven hours later we finally arrived in Heidelberg (traffic was NUTS!). We had taken the autobahn most of the way, which as you may know is known for having no speed limits. Hanno took full advantage of this fact, and drove at speeds up to and including 200km per hour, me squealing in the backseat with each acceleration (I´m not even kidding)!
Talk to you soon!
Love Hayley x
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