Marist Takes Munich

This weekend was my first trip outside of France, which I was anxiously awaiting! The best part was I got to meet up with lots of my friends from Marist who are all studying abroad! I took 2 trains over around 6 hours to get to Munich by about 2:00 on Friday afternoon. I really enjoyed taking the train because it gave me an opportunity to see the German countryside, which looked exactly like I had imagined it would. There were tall traditional churches in the center of the towns with lots of small triangle roofed homes and large farms on the outskirts. When I got to Munich my hostel was 3 minutes away from the train station, and I passed numerous stands selling dirndls and lederhosens, which if you don't know are the traditional German Oktoberfest outfits. At that point I thought "No way will I ever wear that," but oh how I was wrong. Luckily, I bumped into some of my friends and we made our way over to the fair grounds. Now I had always imagined it would be big tents and lots of people drinking beer, never in a million years did I imagine it would be like this. The tents were not traditional tents, but large ornate buildings they put up every year with different themes, beer and music. There are tons of carnival rides and more food than you can imagine. We walked into four or five tents, but so late in the day it's impossible to get a seat unless you have a reservation. We all got our first German pretzels and wandered around until we found a smaller beer garden to get our first beer! Over 6 million liters of Munich brewed beer are served each year! I'm not an avid beer drinker back home, but I do have to say it was really good, especially the lemonade beer we found on Saturday. I tried a German Schwenkbraten (steak onion and ketchup sandwich) and a chocolate covered banana on a stick. That night we went back to meet up with all our other friends and head out to dinner. We walked to Marienplatz Square, a 12th century plaza in Old Town Munich.  I was astonished by the beauty of the buildings, especially the church. The clock sings and dances here during the day. We found a traditional German restaurant, and I had beef soup with vegetables and dumplings and a traditional Bavarian cream dessert Not really sure what it was, but I think it was strawberry yogurt, Bavarian cream with german chocolate ice cream and some sort of berry. SO yummy! Then we all got sucked into buying dirndls, which even though they were expensive added to the whole experience.  I now have my Halloween costume for the next 5 years!  We crashed early because Saturday we had to be up and at the tents by 7am to make sure we got seats.

Bright and early we all headed over to the fair grounds and when the tents opened at 9 it was a rush worse than Black Friday shopping to get seats. German police are quite intimidating, and there was a lot of shoving whistle blowing and yelling but we managed to get seats inside the biggest tent for all of us. In Germany there's no such thing as too early to drink so we all got served our first stein by 9:30 am!!! Culture shock! The people around us were great lots of chanting and singing and dancing on the benches (but not the tables or you get kicked out we learned.) What we didn't realize was we had sat in a lunch area so by 12 we were being kicked out!! We walked around went to another beer garden and then in the afternoon when they switch over the tents went back into HB. We all had an amazing time met some great people, got to try a rotisserie chicken, dance on some more benches and just enjoy the whole atmosphere. The entire day was nothing like I ever expected, it was so funny to see the wide range of ages at the festival from 8 to 70 and everyone was just having a great time. We headed back to the hostel after a long 14 hours at the fair and spent the night catching up with everyone at the hostel bar. I have to say for such a crazy festival I was really really impressed with how clean Oktoberfest was as well as the hostel and Munich in general.

Sunday we all dragged ourselves out of bed to head to the Dachau Concentration Camp, which was an incredibly touching experience. There is nothing that can prepare you for standing in a place that upon liberation by the Allied troops held over 32,000 Jews.  It was an extremely moving experience, and one that I am really glad to have had time to see while in Germany. Then we headed back to Munich and grabbed one last meal before heading home.

Overall reacap of the weekend, I ate drank and laughed a LOT.

Food I ate in Munich-
Bratwurst
Spatzel (thick gnocchi like noodle with cheese and crispy onions)
Schwenkbraten
Chocolate Covered Banana
Chocolate Covered Hot Pepper
Gingerbread Heart Cookie (big thing to wear around your neck)
Bavarian Cream Dessert
Beef Soup
Pretzels
Full Chicken
German Potato Salad

Drinks I had in Germany-
Oktoberest Brew Beer
Lemonade Beer
Jaeger
and a Pumpkin Spice Latte...(a little bit of home never hurt anyone)

Bottom line is good food, great friends, and good beer were recipe for one weekend I know I will never forget!


XOXOX From Paris