Oktoberfest checked off the bucket list

     This past weekend I attended the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest located in Munich, Germany. A short 5 hour train ride from the MilAk in Wiener Neustadt made this possible. We arrived in Munich at about 2:30 in the afternoon and met some fellow cadets studying abroad in Germany at the central train station. From here they took us to the place they were staying which was about an hour outside of the city. We dropped off our bags and headed down to the grounds where Oktoberfest is held. I walked out of the U-bahn and saw sheer madness. There were rollercoasters everywhere, stands selling all sorts of things, and huge beer tents. It was basically just an enormous fair. I had been to the grounds once before when i did a mini-exchange in Biberach, but there was nothing there, just an empty field as far as the eye could see. From mid-september to early october, these grounds are completely full.
     At this point we hadn't eaten lunch, so we decided to get something to eat before commencing in typical Oktoberfest rituals (drinking). I had a schnitzel sandwhich, which would turn out to be a terrible decision. It was cold and a little crunchy, but I was hungry so i finished it. Our grouped walked around for a long time looking for open seats at any of the tents. Apparently you have to arrive very early in the day to even think about getting inside a tent. After about 45 minutes of walking around and shoving children and elderly people out of the way (joking, but not completely), we finally found some outside seats at the Augustiner tent. For those not familiar with Augustiner beer, it is widely regarded as some of the best in the world. Those that don't agree with this: you're wrong.
     From here, we began to consume a good amount of beer. Not only was it very tasty, but the waitress kept them coming. At Oktoberfest, waitresses are recruited based on how much beer they can carry at one time. The only size available to order is the 1 liter Mass. She would come outside carrying ten of these at a time, which is quite a site to see. We were there for about two to three hours. I can't remember the precise time for some reason unbeknownst to me. During this time we each had about 3 beers, which equates to about 100 ounces of fluid, a hard amount of water to drink.Needless to say, there were a few bathroom breaks intersperced in this time period. When we got up to leave, the nasty schnitzel sandwhich decided to make a comeback. Food poisoning at Oktoberfest was not too fun. A few people had gone back home at this point, and it was starting to rain, so some of the guys wanted to go to a huka bar. While they were at some seats in the restaurant, I had a place reserved in the bathroom. After a while we decided to get back home, which came to my relief.
     This morning, having nothing in my stomach, I felt much better. Sorry to those reading about the bit of graphicness (is that a word? I don't think so...) here. We then made our way back to the central train station to get a ticket back to Wiener Neustadt. This coming week should be fun, minus the parading part... Either way, I'm another week down in Austria, and I'm now able to mark Oktoberfest off of the list of things to do before I die.