Forgot About Drey?: Oktoberfest

What up West Side!

As a 20 year old college student, what can I say to define the magnitude of weight that visiting a place like Oktoberfes carries in the lives of myself and my peers. I would say that it is looked at as the best place to drink beer with buds, 2nd only to finding and attending the secret arena in Beerfest, but that would undoubtedly(indubiously) go over a few people's heads. All I know is a lot of what if conversations and imaginings occurred prior to the weekend of September 21st and every single one of them were proven to be naive, infantile attempts at creating a representation of this amazing festival.

With the dramatic intro aside, Oktoberfest began a little sketchily. What we thought was a hotel at the time of booking, ended up being no more than you're slightly above average hostel. They had private rooms sure, but this was a hostel-and a hostel right next to Oktoberfest. With great location came Alcatraz levels of security, not the lackidasial level of hotel security you imagined there would be when you decided you were going to split a 1 person bedroom between 4 people. What's wrong with the floor after a long day at Oktoberfest right? Let's just say they were prepared for shackers and had the necessary precautions to make shaking very difficult. Due to our possessing only one key, getting into the building-let alone the room-proved to be much more of a challenge than we imagined with security levels at an all time high at the door. I'll spare you all the details but we ended up jumping out a couple windows, landing on a couple roofs, and climbing up a fire escape. Sketch, but hey we got in and the plan worked perfectly, so no regrets.

The first night was pretty calm, but the next day was everything but. We started our day off with a couple steins of beer and a game of snappa at the houfbrough tent at around 9 in the morning. It was a Thursday so the place was nearly empty when the game began but slowly filled up towards the end and I'm proud to say we had most of the people watching and even a couple taking pictures of our game. Not so happy to say that despite a respectable amount of points and a great throw to table ratio, a couple catches went array for Sean and I and we lost 7 to 5.

Let me describe these tents. THEY ARE HUGE. All are at least as big as a football field and some definitely bigger. Inside they are just filled with tables to eat and drink at. Most of them are reserved on the weekends and afternoons during the week but if you get there early enough you can grab one that isn't reserved and it's yours until you leave. They're like beach front property, limited and in high demand.

After the game it was a unanimous decision that we should move to the tent known to house the young german crowd, Stottenhammel, (definitely not correct spelling). Well luckily right when we arrived we found a table in the BEST location right in the middle of the crowd, so not only were we getting beer the fastest (which comes in HUGE steins, probably 3 or 4 beers in one, and tastes delicious) but we owned the place. We only took up half the table so anyone that we deemed worth talking to we invited to our spot. We were waving people in and shoeing others out. It was the closest I have ever been and probably ever will be to being a bouncer. After shooing away like 4 sets of 16 year old girls who insisted they weren't to young to be hanging out with us, we started playing card games and joining in the music, chants, and feasting that goes on at Oktoberfest. We eventually ended up hanging out with some local german girls and their friends and traveled around the festival taking in the exhibits, rides, and games. It really is just one huge carnival. For me, I've been on rides and seen Carnivals so my favorite part was by far the tents.

So the next day we went straight to the tents and got a table in the Haughbrow tent which is known to be the American/Australian tent. This place was ridiculous. It was utter chaos. As you entered it sounded like you were entering The Coliseum right before a gladiator match. Just a loud roar the entire time. Every now and again people would stand on their table with their beer at least near full and start chugging. Everyone would stop whatever they were doing and start cheering the person on as he or she chugged. If you finished the cheers only got greater....but if you failed they were heartless. The whole tent would just erupt in BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS!!!!!! Some people would even throw things. It really got crazy. Even for girls! I saw a girl put on a GREAT attempt, perhaps better than I could have done. She was seconds from finishing but just couldn't do it. They were relentless, they didn't cut her any slack. We sat next to some German guys in their lederhosen in the beer garden and they were teaching us all the german chants from vulgar to sincere. A huge crowd favorite oddly enough is 7 nation army by the white stripes.... who knew. They also showed me a tobacco that you take by the nose. Never doing that again. Anyway, we spent the better part of the day at that tent and I have TONS of stories but I have more to write and they're way better in person anyway. For our third day we had to check out of the hostel because we signed up for one night of camping in tents. The third day was spent going to tents we hadn't checked out trying new beers and just hanging out. We eventually met up with some "SB locs" (some santa barbara locals) who we discovered were staying at the same tent ground as us and they guided us to our new home. Our last night was spent on a huge camp ground that had all you can drink beer and sangria as well as a pretty good dinner. It was full of college students from all over the world and was one of the greatest nights slash mornings of partying I've been a part of. Met lots of people that I will probably never see again but that is half the fun.

Awhile ago I had to make the decision to go to Ibiza (spain's neighboring party island) or Oktoberfest. They were both going off around the same time and costed similar amounts and I could only afford one. In the end I obviously chose Oktoberfest, and I'm extremely happy with my decision. It was an amazing mix of exploring a new culture and partying. That weekend is in my "best weekends of my life list" (undoubtedly in the top 3) and unless I am an extremely lucky person will probably not be topped soon.

Check out the pictures, but just know they can't even tell the half of it.

P.S. Last two weeks in Barce will be up soon. I'm slowly but surely making it towards the present.

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