When you come to Munich, there are a couple of things you have to do. First and foremost, you have to drink some German beer. I mean seriously - it’s the beer capital of the world! Second, you have to eat some sausage. I mean seriously - it’s the sausage capital of the world! Third, you have to…shop? Seriously - it may not be the shopping capital of the world, but it's pretty good, and considering the fall season is fast approaching (and God knows we can’t afford to shop in Geneva), it was a small bonus to the trip.
The city of Munich is consistently ranked as one of the world’s greatest places to live. It’s a center for the arts, has a rich (and dark) history, and its’ inhabitants enjoy a very high standard of living. There are restaurants of all kinds, a great public transit system, a wide range of museums, and pretty much anything else you could imagine that would make a city great. We got to see a small taste of this during last year’s Oktoberfest, but not enough to say we really saw the city. As such, we decided to come back this year, and spend some time exploring Munich itself, as well as some of the surrounding countryside.
One thing we’ve found when visiting cities is that walking tours are among the best ways of getting to see a lot of things, while understanding their significance. We s
tarted with one of these, but so did 102 other people, so the group was a bit large. As luck would have it, they split us up into 3 groups, and we were lucky that we didn’t get the annoying tour guide, so our day was looking up. After the walking tour, we did some shopping, because like I said, the shopping is good, then got ready to go on the Munich Beer Challenge, which was basically the same tour group who did the walking tour, but they took you to beer halls instead of historical sites (although in one instance it was a historic beer hall). While it was kind of useless, it did give us an opportunity to meet a bunch of other people who wanted to see the beer halls, so that was fun.
The next day we decided to get out of town and visit the Neuschwanstein castle (I’m pretty sure I spelled that correctly). The Neuschwanstein castle is known as “the fairy-tale castle”, as it was 
the inspiration for the Walt Disney castle that most girls dream about being a princess in (and most boys dream about pillaging and setting fire to, so that their enemies know they have been crushed). All kidding aside, this castle is impressive in that it’s set in one of the most beautiful spots in the Bavarian Alps, and therefore has a truly magical feel to it. As we’ve seen tons of castles over the past year, we didn’t feel the need to go inside, so instead we hiked through some of the mountains around it, and ended up with some of the best vistas I’ve seen anywhere. To finish, we took a horse-drawn carriage down the road leading up to the castle, which was kind of fun, although I don’t think I’ll ever see the appeal of those things. I think an even better idea would have been to let people fire a catapult from one of the ramparts, but that’s just me…
On Friday, we decided to brave the masses and go to the actual Oktoberfest festival. What we didn’t know was that Friday was a German holiday, meaning Germans were getting their drink on and attending the festival instead of working. The resulting huge mass of people made it almost impossible to get inside any of the tents. That being said, after about 3 hours of waiting around, Soph sweet-talked a security guard into letting us in, and we were able to join the party inside. I think it was because she was wearing a drindl; it looked pretty cute on her.
A quick aside about Germans; they are known the world over for many things, but missed in all of that is their love of John Denver. I had forgotten how at o
ur previous Oktoberfest, and Stuttgart, that the crowd knew all the words to “Country Roads”. While this is not necessarily odd in that they know the words, it is somewhat surreal to see thousands of people, many of whom don’t speak English, flip out and join arms while reciting the lyrics to a song that champions the positives of being a redneck. I have trouble describing the utter weirdness of seeing a foreign culture break out in a John Denver homage, and even more trouble understanding why; I mean really, John Denver? That said, it will probably remain a mystery, as psychologists the world over will continue to focus on the more pressing question of the Germans’ love of David Hasselhoff before looking into the John Denver phenomena.
Anyway - the festival was great, and it really is something everyone should do at some point in their lives - if you like massively large groups of people drinking and screaming. In a good way, though - everyone is friendly, and not in that normal irritating-drunk way. Or maybe I was friendly in the irritating-drunk way, and didn’t realize it. I guess we’ll never know…but it’s fun.
Finally, on Saturday, we went back to the festival, but just to walk around and do some of the 
rides and eat sausages. The one thing that’s lost among Oktoberfest is that at it’s heart, it’s a German family festival where you can take your children and have a good time. There are roller-coasters, games, haunted houses, and all sorts of things that you can find at Six Flags, except I didn’t notice any skee-ball, which is too bad, although I wouldn’t have played anyway because I’m not really into skee-ball. For those of you who are, though, maybe Oktoberfest isn’t for you.
To summarize - Munich is an awesome city. There’s a lot to see and do, it’s beautiful and has some great architecture, but most of all, it’s just a fun place. It has a really nice vibe to it that not many other cities possess, and it’s probably one of our favorites so far. And besides - you know you want an excuse to wear some Lederhosen…
Next weekend: Football in London, American style!
Munich!
