Hey everyone,

Yes I am alive, and yes here I am writing again. It seems as though it has been a while since I've written. Sometimes I am put off writing when I see only 14 or 15 people are reading out of the 60 or 70 who "want" to read what I'm doing. I have to keep writing though for those who actually do read and are genuinely interesting in my silly adventures, It's always nice to go back and see what I've been doing as well. As I said though it is slightly off putting when some people cant find the 5 or 10 minutes to read my scribbling. Anyway I'm trying out this new site coz the old one seems to be a piece of s*** now!

This episode is about my Topdeck tour to Germany and Austria for the main purpose of going to Oktoberfest. The basis of most of this writing was from times I wrote on the bus very much in a dilapidated state from previous evenings events. Half of it I can barely even read anyway. It was mostly, we went here, we got pissed, he fell over, she scraped him up, we laughed, we all fell down and so on. Ill try to write it in a better manner here.

So the trip started by meeting at the Globetrotter in at Stamford Brook, which was a nice short trip for Phil, Cinta, Travis, Teneille and I as we all live in London. For some others they had been travelling hours prior to us from Manchester and from other countries to get up to London to start the tour. So we met a few other people on the tour and got on the bus to depart. Being the rowdy type we headed up for the back seats of the bus. It became obvious that we were the most pumped and raucous group. As per usual it takes time to get out of this busy city, but the feeling always brings a smile to my face and fills me with optimism and excitement of what may lay ahead abroad. This was different to normal, as I was on one of these organised tours. In the past it has been just get on a plane/ferry and see what happens. This was to be different, not for a better nor worse experience, just different.

So we got on the ferry from Dover (England) to Calais (France) and played cards with our new friends, Dean, his sister Chelsea and her boyfriend Ian. Phil and I decided we had better check the duty free booze, which payed off. 24 x 500ml Grolsh cans for 10 quid. Wooooooo hooooooo. Dirt cheap, so Phil and I began to charge our way through these on the ferry. Shortly before arrival in France I decided to transform. The transformation was into Batman. I had decided 3 days previous I needed a costume for the trip. It was just a big laugh when I came out. Eyes were all on me, as you know I generally like attention so this was perfect for me.

I entered France with some unusual glances and glares. After a while drinking on the bus I took the suit off and changed back to me again. Most people were asleep going through Belgium and Germany. Phil, Ian and I stayed up drinking most of the night. I remember getting off at a stop with Phil, we were a bit pissy, ran out into the bush somewhere in Germany at a truck stop and pissed. It was freeeeeezing. We proceeded into the shop to buy heaps of food and had a feast of small sausages on the bus, which apparently reeked with a pungent porky smell. I liked the three of them anyway. We eventually joined in the other 42 odd on the bus to get some sleep. I woke early to watch the sun rising over the German countryside. This was the first time I had properly been in Germany as my trip to Konstanz last Feb while in Switzerland was only for 4 or 5 hours and I considered it still Switzerland really. I was really looking forward to trying my German out as apposed to Swiss German I had fumbled with in Switzerland. We arrived at camp an hour or so later and ate breakfast and got settled. The old man (Dean) and I shared a tent, which would later turn into a stinky drunken hovel. J We called it home though for a short time.

We then headed into Munich centre for a short tour before heading to the Hofbrauhaus, which was long awaited for me. We sat outside in our groups and drank steins all afternoon. To add to the excitement was the effort Dean and I made to eat the whole Pork Knuckle. It ended up fairly messy in there, with things being thrown across the room, sing offs going on between our group and some Kiwi's. Without blowing my trumpet too much we had them comfortably covered as steins were smashed. We later went back to the campsite, but I don't remember what time, maybe 10. It's just how it was for a lot of the time here and it is I guess how it's. I ended up strolling around camp till all bloody hours chatting to people in my batman suit. Apparently batman was seen with the old man chatting up 2 fit South African girls and attempted to impress them further by running and jumping a fence. Following these efforts was a stumble and a fall over the fence and a return to ask if anyone saw the incident. I was told this the following day by a fellow onlooker, who didn't at this stage know I was batman. I woke up at 4am the next morning absolutely freezing in my tent with the batman suit on, not in my sleeping bag. I was really struggling for normal free movement due to batman falling asleep in a drunken slumber. I immediately got my gear off and got cosy in my sleeping bag and straight off into a warm sleep for 3 more hours.

Up at 7 for breakfast I was slightly groggy but sucked it up and got ready for hitting the first day of Oktoberfest. The atmosphere around camp was electric, and I couldn't help but join in the excitement and have a beer. The batman suit went on shortly before the bus departed for the Oktoberfest grounds. I had no Idea what was ahead. We walked through the entrance in a huge group and were gazing around in delight, there were rides, games, beer tents, people everywhere and endless food stalls. We all walked around for a little while and it was impossible to get a seat anywhere except outside. Batman fans were already mobbing me by this stage, asking me to have a photo with them, their children or their friends. It was all good fun. We eventually all lost each other and I was just walking around with Phil until we got contact with everywhere and a group of about 15 of us sat around a few tables outside the LowenBrau tent. The anticipation for the first beer was intense. The crowds inside and outside the tents cheered and chanted and when the first orders came out it was "PRRRROOOOSSSTTT!" everywhere and beer was guzzled by thousands and doused all over many others. For the next few hours it was such a great place to be. Kathi, one of my couchsurfers came and met me with a friend and they sat with us for a few hours, which was great to see her again.

We just chatted with people all day, cameras constantly flashed, smiles all round and beer continued to be disappear into keen beer enthusiasts. Some people came and went to eat and meet others friends but the base was there most of the afternoon and evening. Funny thing happened that afternoon, batman was on the way back from the dunny and saw an old friend Allister Graham just ambling round by himself. When I approached him however he had no idea who it was. Apparently he was there With Jason, who lived across the road from me for many years and they had been separated. We spent some time wondering around taking photos and doing stupid stuff. Later that evening I spent some time walking around alone around the grounds and Batman wouldn't get let in to any tents coz they were so full. Eventually I met back up with Phil and I recall scamming our way into a side door and running amuck in a tent for a while. Afterwards, Phil and I were walking out just playing all the darts games and shooting games. I was still being jumped on for photos and doing more and more stupid things in the photos. I really would like to view some of the photos people have of Batman over the few days he was out.

We got back to the tents and partied on for a while, some of the nights at the tent were a tad blurry and I have confused some details, which is somewhat frustrating. I do know this night I actually slept in my sleeping bag though for a few hours which was a nice change. I think this may have been the Evening where Trav got his head stomped on by some chick that Dean was hanging round. This was one of the funniest things ever. Me and Dean in our drunken state were just standing around drinking and this girl says, "I'm gonna go step on someone's tent. The one she walked up to was Tenneille and Trav's. Next minute you here, "AH What the f*** b****, you just stomped on my head, you f***ING C##T." He repeated similar words several times. I wasn't sure whether it was laugh time or tell this girl to run. She had played a silly game and managed to step on the tent of the only black man I laid eyes on in the campsite. He then fled his tent and tracked her down the 5 or 10 meters to where we were standing. He continued swearing at her and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to the ground, with her head firmly placed on the ground he stomped on the ground beside her head yelling, "You want me to stomp on your head b****, I'll f***ING KILL YOU." STOMP, STOMP, STOMP!!! Eventually he returned to the tent, managing to wail out a few more words of anger and the girl walked off. It was all a bit tense that night after that, the girl returned shortly after and spoke a little loudly saying, "I'd better watch where I step now." Trav still awake and furious screamed out some more obscenities, "f*** YOU b****, I WILL COME OUT THERE AND STOMP ON YOUR HEAD." These were words amongst a lot more. Teneille I think was the only thing holding him in his tent them. This silly b**** eventually retreated and f***ed off for the rest of the night.

The next morning was wake up all munged up and decrepit in my tent again not really knowing what had been going on. Again I stumbled over to put away the breaky. The old man took a while to get up and repeated in his semi-consciousness that he would walk to Dachau and meet us there instead of get his sorry ass up and get on the bus. Eventually we were all up and on the bus to the concentration camp at Dachau. The place had a weird tenseness about it and as I walked through the front gate it was as if I'd just jumped in an ice bath, the temperature just seemed to drop 5 or 6 degrees. We walked all strolled around wondering what went on is this place only some 65 years ago. The plaques were disturbing and the conditions and rules were just so awful. It was so hard to believe that humans could treat other humans so dreadfully. At times we tried to share a joke or two. I wasn't sure if it was the fact half of us were still under the influence possibly or the fact that we were so rocked by the whole atmosphere and experience of Dachau that we felt we needed some sort of cover to shelter us from the reality of what went on here. The Gas chamber was dead quiet. No-body said a word while we were in there. I was disgusted but glad I went in there.

After Dachau we all needed to take a deep breath and get charged up for another big night. A group of us went down to the stand still wave on the river and watched a few guys surf it for a while and batman played a bit of footy with the boys in the park. Soon again however, we were off on the bus to the Fest. Today we all walked down together to the Hofbrau tent and again had to settle for a table on the outside of a tent. There was no lack of action here though. After my first walk to the toilet I came back to the guys having a fight with chicken, throwing it all over the place. That night I went to go on the rides with some of the guys but got too much attention on the way in my suit and lost them so I ended up wandering around with random people for a while and then headed back to where everyone else was at the tent. It was snuff everywhere and off everything and a lot of steins. I ended up talking to an Austrian girl who was selling stuff, a while later I turned to see everyone had left and so had the last bus. So there I am walking around on my lonesome, with my politest German trying to ask how to get back to the campsite. Eventually I got on another bus from a different tour group and made it back to campsite. I step off the bus and some girl comes up and spits in my face. Yeah weird I thought as well. I had a go at her and told her where to go and some other guy who had seen me previously around the campsite helped me get rid of her. Then she comes up asking for my camera and claims I had been taking photos of her or her friend throwing up. I couldn't understand where this was coming from, I had just stepped off the bus and I wasn't exactly dressed like everyone else. I was like your not having my camera so she starts going crazy trying to kick and punch me. Batman moved swiftly into self-defence mode and got her in the sleeper hold and told her to calm down. Her friend then swings a wild arm at me so I block it with her friend and push the spitting b**** into her friend and started going psycho at them calling her every name under the sun, I don't want to recall or repeat.

Next second Ian and Dean are walking up as I'm going off at this chick and think its pretty funny. I spoke with a few guys from high school shortly after as well. Johnny and Matt, was weird to see them. Later on Dean, Ian and I went back to the tents and took the piss around camp for a while and headed into our tent to snuff for a few hours. It was messy in there. Noses were running and we were struggling to breathe from laughter.

I'll write about Austria and the return to Oktoberfest in the next one.

Sorry again its taken so long to put up.

Morgs