..what has happened so far:
The first week is over and I am still in Munich. And it seems that I will stay here even longer. This seems not too bad as outcome for the first day, doesn't it?
Nevertheless... 3 times within one week Oktoberfest was just far too much Bavaria for me. Just recovered from the last bad cold two weeks ago, the next one brought me down, this weekend.
But stop! One step after another.
So, I started last Friday in Hamburg, my car packed full of things I thought, I really need the first weeks in Munich (e.g. travel guides to get away again), and with the worst travel weather I ever had, when driving on Germany's highways - down pouring heavy rain all the way from north to south - 12 1/2 hours long, because of the bad traffic conditions on the road..
Fortunately Tobias, a friend of Michael, was driving down with me. Otherwise I would have gone crazy with all the bad weather and that coexisting synchronous mood within myself. The only thing was him being tired, he nearly felt asleep - but only until that point where I threatened him with driving circles on the highway if he fell asleep. Wonderful method to keep someone awake. :-) So we finally arrived long after midnight at Annas' place. We waited till Michael, who was driving down separately started from Hannover, picked Tobias up to go and bug a friend of them for staying there overnight.
Because I got evidence one day before that my flat sharing room was meanwhile given to another person (and nobody told me this), I was prepared to surf on Anna's couch this weekend, sharing the living room the night from Saturday to Sunday with Gerald (HA! I was first! :-) ) and changing to the next couch at Sonja's on Monday to stay there until I finally got my own apartment at the MUCCampus, for a lot of money per month. But this is another topic.
Saturday was 'Reunion Day' at the Oktoberfest in Munich. After Gerald had arrived at Anna's place we met Amelie at the main train station and decided that it would be wise to eat something before having liters over liters of beer at the fest.
While finding Amelie at the main station was relatively easy for us to accomplish, finding Michael and Tobias at a specific point at the Oktoberfest was a real challenge.
This was totally packed with people - all kind of people. Especially with a lot of Italians.
Amelie needed to make pics of typical Bavarian traditional clothes. She had enough possibilities for this on our way:
The Underground station 'Theresienwiese' had been so full of people that they had to close this one for some time - unfortunately we had been there right in time to get into it..
And at the Oktoberfest we needed some tries to understand Michael and his friends on the cellphone, where the heck they are situated drinking their liters of beer happily...
It was just fortunate that we found the Augustiner Braeu Biergarten and especially them inside it. And we were even more fortunate finally being able to find a spot on a bench to sit down and drink our mass. :-)
Anyway, we got to know from an Austrian sitting on a bench with us, that people like him are going here once a year, sitting down from morning (9AM) to evening (in this case 9PM), drinking loads of beer and talking to all these people. Another guy told me that he drank 10 Mass over one day, once. 10 liters?? This is all crazy! I had already enough after 1 1/2 Mass. How can one body stand 10 Mass???
In the end Gerald, Anna and me brought Amelie to the train station, letting her drive home in a totally over-crowded train, back to Erlangen. Michael & friends stayed at their benches, promising freshly known people discounts on Conti-wheels. We (Gerald, Anna and me) met them again the next day in the beer garden of the English Garden. They looked tired, but not totally hang overed. :)
While Gerald went home in the evening, I stayed another night surfing on Anna's couch, relieved not to be alone in Sonja's apartment. This was a nervous night. Couldn't sleep so well, because now the relaxing days were over. On the next day the work should start... And then there was the organization of the apartment stuff..additionally to the office stuff.. and where were the answers to all of my thousands of questions?
More to that crazy week, starting after that night and just ended with this midnight, in my next entry..later... when I fetched some sleep..
Duh, not all the time, but at least 5 days, in Rio De Janeiro. The rest of the time I was traveling around discovering the vast opportunities of this country, together with some friends.
