Big Adventures, Little World

It wasn’t until about 8:00AM the next morning when we arrived, hungry, aching, sleep deprived and slightly angry at the train not being what we thought it was. There was a big plus to the train though, not just for Munich, but in Paris and London as well, and that was the fact that the stations are all in the heart of the cities. This meant no traveling an hour or more to get to and from airports. We trudged off to find the hostel, even though we figured we probably weren’t going to be able to check in for at least another 5 hours, which we confirmed once we arrived. We could at least leave our bags there while we went off to have some much needed food. Other than that, we didn’t have much energy for anything else, so we just went back to the hostel and relaxed in the lobby while we waited for The Fanatic Tour Leaders so we could check in.

Finally, it got to 2:00PM and we could check in. We had already got our instructions, wristbands and T-shirts from the Fanatics organisers, so we got our key and went up to the room so we could shower and rest to get some energy before the night’s activities. So that we did. It was about 6:30 that night before Mark and Sam arrived at the hostel and it wasn’t long after they had arrived that we were all heading to the Augustiner Beer Hall for some dinner and some drinks. We were walking there, so we’d picked up a few beers each while we waited and for the road as well. One of the beauties of most countries in Europe is that you can walk the streets drinking alcohol.

Once we arrived at the Beer Hall, it was barely even a minute before we had someone taking our order (which was just 1 stein for every person) and then only a few minutes later when he came out again carrying 14 steins of beer, 6 in each hand by the handles, then with 1 rested in between the handles on each hand. It’s very impressive. The steins would weigh at least 1kg each, and then each was filled with a litre of beer, so it would total close to 30kgs or more! Just incredible! Next thing, we were hungry. We’d been hanging out for some of the famous pork knuckle and it was well worth it too! A big knuckle of pork covered with pork crackling and gravy. Oh it was delicious. We all smashed them down along with our steins of beer and sat around talking with some of our new friends before we left early on after our long days, and in preparation for our early start and big day at Oktoberfest the next day.