Oktoberfest and freeloading off friends in Innsbruck

I flew into Munich from Oslo to meet my friend Thomas for Oktoberfest. Thomas and Tracey are friends from Katherine who have recently moved to Innsbruck in Austria for six months. They have a four-year-old girl, Emmi, and a one-year-old son, Tully.

They’d only been in Innsbruck for less than a week when Thomas nicked off to meet me and have a bit of a boozy night out. In fact, I’m pretty sure he is the first person to ever be waiting for me at the gate when I’ve been picked up from an airport. So much man love.

We had a hotel room to share and had a comparatively quiet night, keeping our powder dry for the big one.

Now how to describe Oktoberfest? The actual site is maybe 20 minutes walk from the middle of Munich and kind of feels like a really drunken country show. That’s probably a tautology. I could just say it feels like a country show. There are rides and dodgy fried food vendors everywhere, and also huge tents, they actually look more like sheds that are put up by major breweries.

We arrive there about 11am on Saturday. Thomas and Tracey had tried to get into a tent when they were in Munich a week before, but they had no luck. They fill up super quickly, so we thought we were there early. We discovered that every tent had been full since 9am and it was really unlikely we were going to be let in! Bugger. It was also raining, which made the idea of waiting outside in the hope we might somehow get in even less appealing. We did find one place that served us a beer outside the tent in the rain, but after that it was time for a plan B.

We went into a beer hall in the middle of Munich owned by Hofbräuhaus. Here’s a fun fact – it’s apparently where Hitler gave one of his first public speeches. It was super packed and we still had to wait to get in, but we did. It was kind of crazy. It’s just hundreds of tables holding about 10 people in this huge cavernous room. We found a table that had a spot for two to squeeze into with a bunch of Swedish blokes, and ordered a beer.

As you can see, they don’t really serve the beer by the schooner. Each stein is one litre. It feels like a lot of beer to drink. 

There was also an oompa band playing in the middle of the room, and everynow and then they played this 16 bar song that is apparently a German “cheers”. I think it’s a slightly classier version of “Here’s to Thomas, he’s true blue”. Everyone starts singing along and swaying their steins arm in arm. The first time it happened I had absolutely no idea what was going on!

All that beer naturally needs a light, healthy lunch to go with it. I had pork knuckle, which was delicious. But oh my goodness, so much food! All it was was this meat, with the best crackling I’ve ever had, and a potato dumpling. It was absolutely amazing, but on top of an ever-increasing tally of beer steins it was kind of hard to eat!

There was some excellent people watching to be had, including the old dude behind us who spewed all over his table and then passed out in it. That was a sight!

Eventually we went for a bit of a walk and they were just opening up the upstairs level. So of course we sat and had another couple of beers and tried to make new friends.

Eventually we decided to head back to Oktoberfest and try out luck getting into a tent. It took us a while of standing around but eventually we managed to work out way in. Now inside the tents is crazy. It’s even bigger than the beer hall and there are just tables everywhere. We got in at about 9pm so it was pretty messy and kind of smelt like a lot of spilt beer. There was a more pop band playing on a stage about five metres high and just people drinking beer and talking everywhere. We couldn’t really sit down and it was really hard to move around but we still managed to procure beer.

 

And yes, we were starting to get a little drunk. I think this photo sums it up pretty well.

The whole thing wraps about a bit after midnight, but there were plenty of bars and clubs open in Munich. We did eventually make it back to our hotel room, somehow.

The next day neither Thomas nor I were feeling particularly fresh. We had to check out though and drive to Innsbruck, where I was hitting them up for a free bed for a few nights! We took the scenic route back, which was about two hours, and the road slowly became more and more alpine. The colours of the leaves changing were particularly amazing. As an Australian I never really understood why people got so excited about this – now I understand.

My friend Penny was also hitting up Thomas and Tracey for a free bed, and was there with Tracey and the kids when we arrived. I think Thomas and I were both in need of an early night!

Thomas and Tracey had only been in their for a few days when Penny and I showed up to freeload. They had a whole heap of things to do so I spent my first morning there babysitting the kids with Penny. Well, she didn’t do much. Luckily there were no tears, and much to our relief, no poo.

Thomas speaks fluent German, so he’s very handy to travel with! Tracey, however, does not. So the next day she went off to start an intensive language course, while Thomas, Penny, Emmi, Tully and I went to have some fun. Yes, I do feel bad about that. There’s a gondola kind of thing to the top of a nearby mountain. Actually it’s this weird train thing, then two gondolas! I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, because it was super cloudy that day and I thought the view would not be good. But Innsbruck is in a valley, and the clouds, as it turns out, were just hanging out there. The view was really amazing, it sort of felt like something from the land before time.

We also had lunch at a cafe right up there, which was perfect as it also had a kids playground for, um, Emmi. And Penny. And me. As you can see though Penny doesn't play nicely with others. She also sucks at the game of pushing the other person off the balance-beam first. 

Oh yeh, this is Emmi. She’s cool. Her parents gave her a camera – pink, because she’s yet to get onto the whole smashing the patriarchy thing (I also had a long chat with her about how Barbie isn't a realistic representation of femininity) – to document her six months in Austria. Thomas borrowed it to bring to Oktoberfest because it’s waterproof and shockproof. That was a good decision, but we got a few looks for our pink camera!

 

I think the next day involved finishing a jigsaw puzzle, and Penny and I starting our at least one Austrian hot chocolate a day habit. After that we decided to head to Salzburg and Vienna, but I’m going to split up my Austrian story. More soon, I promise! 

And thanks to Thomas for giving me his photos of Oktoberfest, and I also pinched some of his photos from the top of the mountain.