Oktoberfest is said to be the largest people’s fair in the world. Every year a dozen German breweries supply the event with six million liters of Germany’s finest Oktoberfest specialty beer, and every year roughly six million visitors come from all around the world to drink that beer. Oktoberfest takes place in Theresienwiese Park in Munich, Germany. Upon leaving Rothenberg, four backpackers traveling Europe just after high school found themselves hopping on a train to Munich for a festival they wouldn’t forget. Aside from being warned of the chaos by a hung-over man at the train station in Rothenberg, we had no idea what to expect from Oktoberfest, besides of course lots and lots of drinking.
The four backpacking Park High graduates Adam, Sarah, Koz and I arrived in Munich in the middle and peak of the three week long festival, and we could see Oktoberfest had taken over the city. People filled the train station to the doors. Some were ecstatic and just arriving to Oktoberfest. Others were haggard and franticly trying to catch the right train home. Walking out of the train station we saw hundreds of people, most dressed in old Bavarian-style clothes. Men wore lederhosen pants with suspenders and traditional German hats and women wore the old fashioned dresses that scrunched their breasts together and only covered about half of their chest. People wee yelling and singing, walking with arms around each other. Some were even standing on balconies overlooking the streets waving German flags, most of which were old men looking down all the ladies’ dresses.
Our first task was to find a place to stay for the night. We had been trying to book a hostel in Munich for weeks and failed to find anything available online so we knew we were in trouble unless by chance we found a place where someone left earlier than they reserved. Luckily, Sarah found an opening online for the night in a hotel across town so we booked it and hopped on a metro there as fast as we could. It was a pretty nice hotel, a little more expensive than we were used to but we were happy to have a place to sleep in instead of some crazy park downtown. We checked in, put our bags down and headed straight for Oktoberfest. We were unsure how to get there but it was easy to find. We just followed the huge crowd of people flocking towards the festivities.
On the way to the Oktoberfest grounds we saw people passed out on store doorsteps and benches from drinking too much. When we finally saw the gates to the park we could see huge lit-up letters that read “Willkommen zu Oktoberfest!” The world’s largest party was going on right before our eyes.
As far as we could see there were people with beer hats and other Oktoberfest memorabilia. Above them were roller coasters and other carnival rides. The lanes were lined with merchandise stands and hot dog and pretzel vendors and the place was one big drunken amusement park. Inside the park were 11 gigantic beer tents, each one featuring a different German beer. We went over to the first one we saw, but the doorman said it was full and we would half to wait ten or 15 minutes until he let some people out. We sat at the picnic tables outside and ordered our first stein from one of the beer maids. She carried out four huge glass mugs in just one hand. It was a hefty eight euros each but it was well worth it for a liter of a delicious Oktoberfest brew. We drank one while we waited for the doors to open. When they finally did, we ordered another to take inside.
I had never before in my life seen so many drunk people in one place at the same time. Everyone there seemed to be in good spirits, either singing or smiling. The tent was full of tables with four or five aisles running between them. There was no way we were going to find a place to sit so we just walked up and down the aisles, steins in hand, giving a “Prost” (German cheers) to everyone we saw, most of whom would put their arm around us and start singing in our ears.
Each tent had a traditional German band playing on a stage in the middle. They played national German songs as well as a few American classics like “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Take Me Home Country Roads” and “Hey Jude”. After a while we moved along to the next tent and after a few hours we were ready to hopefully make our way back to the hotel. Adam ended up losing us at the metro station and didn’t make it back until 4 in the morning.
For the next week we went wild at the beer fest, drinking, meeting people, and going on a ride or two. Our stomachs couldn’t handle any of the crazy rollercoasters, but we enjoyed a few calm amusement rides like the ferris wheel. However, after blowing our wad on beer steins and overpriced hotels we realized we were spending way too much money and needed to do things a little differently. We started buying our own beer and drinking before Oktoberfest and decided to find a campground instead of a hotel.
For the remainder of our time in Munich we stayed a campground called “The Tent.” Located in a park and less than a 15-minute metro ride from the Oktoberfest grounds, it was basically a large area where people could camp out on the grass in their own tent, stay in a large open tent on the floor, or stay in a bunk bed in another tent, each option getting a little more expensive. We went with the floor for only ten euros. They gave us a few blankets and mats and let us pick out a spot in the tent. The place was perfect and had pretty much everything we needed. There were bathrooms, showers, a bar, a café, hammocks and couches scattered around, a music hall, ping-pong tables and other recreational equipment for entertainment. Being that it was a park there was a lot of open space for things like football or frisbee. There was even a fire pit where everyone would hang out and have bonfires every night after Oktoberfest.
The tent we were sleeping in was pretty tight living quarters for sleeping side-by-side with people we didn’t know, but we made the best of it. There were lockers so we didn’t have to worry about getting anything stolen and the place was actually quite tasteful and homey, at least for young people and hippies. We met a lot of really cool and friendly people and had a lot of fun. Everybody there was a lot closer to our age, which we liked since the majority of people at Oktoberfest were much older.
For the next few days we made it to Oktoberfest early in the day so we could find a place to sit and eat, drink, and enjoy ourselves in a tent instead of just walking around. When Oktoberfest closed every night at 11 p.m., we would make our way back to the tent and hang out there. After a week in Munich, though we didn’t get to see much of the city, I’d say we had a pretty full Oktoberfest experience. On account of the large amount of beer we drank, we ran into a lot of unique encounters we probably would have never experienced without going to Oktoberfest. We finished off half-broken left-over beer steins we picked off tables. One night we even got stopped by the German police for yelling and making a racket, banging on the side of a van as we were walking home. When we told the police it was our first time at Oktoberfest they went from being angry with us to laughing with us. We met complete strangers that after 15 minutes of chatting with them were talking with us like we had known one another for months and giving us hugs.
By the end of the week I learned Oktoberfest was really all about getting out of your comfort zone. Oktoberfest was about doing things like getting on top of tables and singing and dancing with people you didn’t even know. It was about a couple dozen people helping each other find their way across town back to the campsite and sharing conversations, stories and perspectives while turning strangers into friends. Nearly every person we met was kind enough to either give us a prost, a pat on the back, or indulge in a friendly conversation. I am happy I can say I’ve had such an experience at 18 years old and have been to the best party in the world.
Considering the amount of money we spent and alcohol consumed, we needed to find somewhere cheap to relax. We decided that Prague would be our next destination. However, we did not know getting there would be a little harder than we expected, as we would soon find out there was a strike in the European train system and experienced the reality of spontaneous backpacking in foreign countries. Read on in the next installment of our European travels in the Livingston Weekly.
—Sean Reinhart