Close the Fenster [Oktoberfest]

Yesterday we went to Munich for the day & did a partial city tour with Andreas. Unfortunately, it was really cold & rainy for most of the day, so the tour was pretty miserable. We went to have lunch in this smallish cafe that was SUPER crowded because of all the people in the city for Oktoberfest! And, of course, being in Munich made Kate and I want AMERICAN food for lunch... so we got a cheeseburger & chicken fingers to split between the two of us! Hahaha. It was sooooo good though!

After that, we decided that we needed to go shopping, since that was a nice indoor activity to keep us out of the rain. So we walked down the main shopping street in Munich (which I'd say is equivalent to the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica, only LONGER). On our way down the street in the Oktoberfest direction, we spotted some super cheap dirndl's chilling outside of one of the stores... so we stopped & Taryn and I tried them on! And they were super cute... and mine actually FIT! Sooo I got it. :)

Then we finally made our way down to the area formally known as Theresienwiese, aka OKTOBERFEST! Basically Oktoberfest is a GIANT county fair with lots of awesome rides and millions of people... and a lot of beer. There are something like 14 beer halls that take about 30-40 minutes just to get IN... and then you have to find somewhere to SIT (which we discovered is IMPOSSIBLE). So we wandered around the one beer hall for about 30 min until I decided to finally put on my new DIRNDL! After that we decided to leave the beer hall so that we could get something to drink... haha.

Some of us girls got "radlers" which is basically 1/2 beer and 1/2 sprite-ish type stuff. That was pretty good (well, better than real beer). We got some food (wurst, of course!) & then decided that we could leave... cuz there was no way that we were going to be able to get into another beer hall... let alone sit down in one... so we left & got back to the train station with quite a while to spare before the train actually left. So all the girls but me decided to use the toilets while I waited for them outside... and in the meantime get hit on by like 4 stupid guys, probably because I was wearing a dirndl. Oh well.

The trainride back was the most, well, interesting part of the whole trip... because we were sitting in a no-smoking car... and the people behind us were smoking... so we opened the window... and it was cold, so they were sad. But they were smoking, so we HAD to... ps. my stuff STILL smells like smoke :-p We were kinda worried because the one Austrian girl & one of our girls almost got into a punching match... but luckily the Austrian girl's friends held her back. But it was still kinda scary... but funny at the same time! & I have to say, it really wasn't that cold. I was in my dirndl and I wasn't cold... (so I offered one of the whiny people my coat, but he didn't like that very much). I think the best part of the whole thing was telling them that we weren't American, so they started calling us Englanders... and we corrected them by saying that we were actually Australian! Hahaha...

:)

Pictures:
1- Beautiful Rococo-style church in Munich
2- Kate, Me (in the dirndl), & Taryn
3- Inside a beer hall (it was CRAZY.)
4- Hillary, Katherine, Taryn, & Samantha with their yummy Radlers
5- Kate, Hillary, Katherine, Samantha, & Taryn in the streets of Oktoberfest (with the cool Olympic ring rollercoaster in the background!)