Oktoberfest 2012?

Munich, Germany. My favorite place in Europe so far. That being said I'm gonna go ahead and address the one thing that I know you are thinking. It’s the Beer. As fratty as it sounds and as much as I don’t want it to be, it is the beer. Its not necessarily the taste, which is fantastic. Its not the variety, because there are lots of beers everywhere. Its not even the fact that it has been the one place we spent more money on beer than anything else. For me, it’s the whole attitude of the place that made it so great. And that inevitably, in my opinion, is traced back to the beer. Theres just something about walking into on of those Bier Gartens and immediately feeling a little more like a local. Before you even have a chance to sit down you can’t help but feel like you have something in common with everyone in the place. That’s a feeling you don’t come by often when traveling from city to city and you just can’t deny that it’s the beer.

Each night that we spent in Munich, we ate at a different Beer Garden. Each of these beers has been around for ages and these giant beer hauls are like their home bases where people have been dining and drinking for centuries. Our first night we ate at the Augustiner Keller and that’s when I knew I would like Munich. We got sandwiched at this long picnic table in the middle of the restaurant between a bunch of older German men. A bit intimidating at first. I mean this is what they do, this is what they are known for and here we are stuck right in the middle of it all. We don’t know the rules or even if there are rules. What’s the right way to cheers and when? We couldn’t just sit off in the corner minding our own business like we could in other cities; we were part of it all now. It almost felt like we sat in the middle of a big family dinner and just didn’t want to screw up. However, we spent the next 2-3 hours carefully dissecting each others conversations and listening to their experiences and trips to America; Las Vegas and Malibu of all places, and had an absolute blast with them.





The next day we went on a tour of the city and got a little background on Munich and it’s history. Very interesting place with a pretty dark past. Much of the city was destroyed by Allied bombers during WWII so many of the things we saw were reconstructions of the originals. That afternoon we went out to BMW world and took a tour of their main production facility right there in Munich. This was aaamazing. We saw a BMW basically go from what begins as a roll of steel to the finished product. The robots and technology used to build these cars in unbelievable. No pictures were allowed inside the plant but we got a few of BMW World which was this huge interactive display on their cars and technology. Below is a picture of their corporate headquarters. They built it back in the 70's for the Olympic Games that were held in Munich. Its call "The Four Cylinder"...



That night we would go to the world famous Hoffbrau Haus for our second go-round with the beer hauls. There are no tables and chairs in the Hoffbrau, or many of the beer hauls for that matter, just a bunch of picnic tables so we had to search around a little while for a place to squeeze in. Of all the people in all the beer hauls we could have sat next to we end up next to a couple from Dallas, Texas. They live about 5 minutes from Graham’s parents and have friends in Texarkana. As much fun as the Germans were the night before it was nice to have a few Texans to share travel stories with. Again its just part of that atmosphere these places have. No matter where you sit, odds are you are gonna leave dinner with more friends that you sat down with. Had I been anywhere else it would have been a little inappropriate to be having dinner conversation while continuously wielding a stein of beer bigger than my face. Better yet, that this woman I was talking was doing to same.



The next day we took a tour of Dachau. This was the site of one of the first and longest lasting concentration camps under the Third Reich. I’ve seen quite a bit of stuff in the last 4 months of my travels but can only think of a handful of things that generate the same reaction that Dachau did. For instance, Normandy. I don’t think its just because it was a concentration camp, but more because its something that we have all read and heard so much about and for me I guess it just never really took on a true sense of reality. For the first time in awhile it wasn’t just the palace of some dynasty from so long ago that it almost seemed like a fairy tale. Seeing this all first hand was very real. The memorial was setup by the survivors of the camps about 25 years after it was shut down so it was all very matter of fact and vividly descriptive. This was the only gate that you could get in or out of the camp through. The words on the top say, "Work will set you free."



Overall, like I said, I loved Munich. The history was the most interesting to me. The people were the friendliest to us and overall I just felt like I could have stayed a lot longer.I even liked the food. We had it all; Schnitzel, Pork Knuckle, Bratwursts, etc. Still hurts to know that I was so close to Munich during Oktoberfest and didn’t make an appearance. Something tells me that might change sometime in the future...