Germany: 1, Me: 0

Oktoberfest. What is there to say about Oktoberfest? Well I guess I can sum it up with just three words: touche, Oktoberfest, touche.

It was quite the interesting weekend in Germany. We left Thursday night for Munich and arrived around 10 a.m. The bust ride was deceiving. Germany is so beautiful and the ride through what seemed to be the countryside was breathtaking. Everything was so green, and the houses had such a historical feel about them. But then we stopped in Munich and the hustle and bustle of Oktoberfest began.

Our first problem was where to put our bags. We were on a time crunch given that the later you get into the grounds, the less likely you were to get into a tent, and we were told that if we got there around noon everything would be packed and we'd be waiting hours to get in. AND they don't serve beer unless your IN a tent and have a table. This baffles me, but I guess they know what they are doing more than I do. Buy anyways, our first problem was what to do with our stuff because we surely did not want to be walking through the tents with big backpacks that scream TOURIST! And we didn't have time to find the train station, buy tickets, take the train to Haar (the city where out hotel was), walk the 15 minutes to our hotel and then book it back before noon. So instead, after about 20 minutes of speaking terrible German, leaning back on our Italian, and then getting mocked when we finally had to resort to our oh so familigar English, we found the main train station, got lockers, met up with a friend and were on our way. Note: I don't even like beer (in fact I hate it. it makes me feel all bloated) but by this time I was ready for a Stein.

Much to our surprise, we got into a tent fairly easily, and we were able to meet up with friends and have a drink. Because it was Friday, it wasn't terribly crowded, but as the day went on more people began to arrive. I had my first taste of the German beer, and I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. Now I'm not saying that it'll be my drink of choice, but it was better than I expected. I feel like that explains a lot about the tents. I never expected to like all the people around us, or the food (pretzels and chicken are not my favorite, especially since I was told they sometimes give you the chicken with the heads still on!) But I fell in love with pretzels, as well as the only American song Germans know. I don't even know the name of it, but it's pretty catchy and I've caught myself singing it a few times since being back. It's pretty short, was repeated often and with much enthusiasm, and goes something like this: "Ooh Ahh! I wanna know-oh-oh-oh-oh would you be my girl?! Ooh Ahh!" Oktoberfest had a lot of tricks up it's sleeves, because it surprised us again. Last weekend just so happened to be "Italian Weekend" meaning that it was the most popular weekend for Italian men to come to Oktoberfest. Just when we thought we were going to get a break from the creeps, they end up seated at the table next to us, plopping their silly looking hats on our heads, asking us to take pictures with them, trying to compliment us saying me and my friend have "the most beautiful eyes" they've ever seen (but, really, how can we BOTH have the most beautiful eyes? Don't they know we are used to their cheesy one liners by now??) Anyways, so yes, Italians surrounded us in our first tent (Lowenbrau if anyone knows anything about that tent), until we were kicked out around . This happens every day because rich people have enough money to reserve tables starting at 3. So we had to hop on over to another tent, where the festivities continued. We found a table way in the back, stood on it, and proceeded to dance and sing and make friends with people walking by. I really can't remember why, but we decided to leave that tent for another, but by that time it was impossible to get in, and we were stuck waiting outside. German food grosses me out, so I got some French fries wile others chose to eat God knows what (aka hot dogs and bratwurst.) By the way, my friend and I expected the bad food and thought ahead. We brought some honey nut cheerios, nutella, and break to serve as our breakfast and late night snack when we got home. Turns out it saved us a good chunk of money! But anyways, we got back into some tents and played around until it got dark. We then booked it back to the train station, found some random German boys to help us buy a train ticket and teach us how to stamp it, where to go, and then we were on our way to the hotel! By that time, everyone we were trying to meet up with either had phones with no more minutes, or they had broken, so we were left to walk down some sketchy streets in the pouring rain with our backpacks and crabby attitudes. (I forgot to mention that I maybe got 3 hours of sleep total on the bus ride the night before, so of course I was crabby.) So then after about a half hour of wandering around a deserted, dark town, we finally made it to the hotel and were in the clear! Successful first night at Oktoberfest? I guess you could say that.

Saturday was a different story, interesting though. We got into the grounds around 10:30, which was apparently too late considering it was officially the weekend and now EVERYONE and their mothers had decided to show up for the festivities. Ohm and yes how could I forget the weather; well it was freezing, windy, and pouring rain so that was a fun little treat. What made it even better was that now we had to try to locate where our friends were, then try to maneuver to the front of the lines and wait for the security guards to let us in. At our third attempt, a side door at Lowenbrau, the security guard was a 50 something year old crabby pants who couldn't even be bribed! We joked that he had a lot of integrity. That was until one of our friends begged him and started giving him little kisses on the cheek to let us in. She even went so far as to get our waitress to come talk German to him...after that he was all smiles and laughs with us. Oh I forgot to explain that for the hour and a half before he let us in, he repreatedly shoved us back into the crowd, even when I was falling back on other people who were having to hold me up. He was an A-hole to say the least. Anyways, after he got some action he was a different man, and all I cared about was that we got in and I never had to be shoved by him again! Inside it was play time again, and thi time we were surrounded by Polish and German people. I must say I prefer the Polish people. We sat at their table and had some good talks with them. I then proceeded to find some fellow Thetas and we took our signature pics (Theta is my sorority at USD). Annnndddd this is about when Germany got the best of me. My camera got beer on it and it is probably forever broke. Dunn dunn dunnnn. I was pretty upset about it. And then after 3 we got kicked out of our table, even though our waitress, Gaby, loved us. We walked around a bit, my friends got some hot dogs, I got french fries, and then we went to dinner at some sketch restaurant. It was weird because they just kind of put you at a table that had enough chairs for your party, so I ended up sitting next to an old man and his wife, but also diagonal from these German guys who let the Steins get the best of them. They officially creeped me out when one of them tapped me on the shoulder and advised me to move to a different table because I was tempting him too much and he didn't want to end up back in jail. Hmmm? I didn't ask any questions. I just turned around and inched my chair away from his. And then one of his friends decided to toss a note over to our table asking how our "back doors" were. God I missed the USA at that point...or even Italy!

So after an interesting dinner, we headed back to Haar. I took my much needed shower and we called it an early night! It was just after midnight when we layed down, but hey, that's the closes to midnight that I've falled asleep since being in Europe. And it was ssooooo necessary.

Sunday morning brought a different day! Instead of getting hammered off the German beer just to sit on a bus for 8 hours and probably get carsick, my friends and I decided to head to Dachau, the concentration camp. As twisted as I feel saying this, I actually really enjoyed seeing the concentration camp and reading about all the history. It was a really moving and sobering experience. First, we started by visiting the "roll call grounds," where everyone was to meet every morning. We learned that Dachau was one of the first concentration camps to open, and it was one of the only ones that was consistently running throughout the entire 12 years. Dachau opened in March of 1933, which surprised me considering how early that date seems; and it was meant for rebellious Germans who spoke out against all that was going on in the European governments at that time. It was also one of the last to close in May of 1945. Along with the roll call grounds, we ventured to the barracks, and the crematorium. The barracks were interesting in that there were rows and rows and rows of what looked like huge planter boxes, and then only one building of barracks that they kept up for tourists. Inside the barracks depicted torture in itself. There were rows of 3 level high wooden bunk beds that were basically on top of each other. I would not be able to live without my personal space, so i don't know how those people survived their living quarters alone. They had absolutely no personal space whatsoever. Then, in the crematorium, we got to walk through the rooms in which the people were instructed on how to use the "showers," then where they undressed, and then the gas chambers. This room was really interesting and I am glad I didn't know what it was until I walked through it. But it was a very plain looking room with cement stones on the ground and little nozzles coming out of the walls. It didn't look like it would fit more that 30 people comfortably, but the plaques explained that the Nazis would fit 150 people in there at a time.

The following rom was where they stored the bodies of those waiting to be cremated. They explained that there would be stacks of sometimes 300 people at a time. The next room over was where they had big furnace looking brick contraptions. They reminded me of what you see at pizza places. The outside is all brick and you can see inside the oven; there's a big metal surface and they have that big stick that you use to put the pizzas in and then take ou when they are cooked. That analogy creeps me out, but it's the only way I can think of describing it, and they explained that they would fit 3 or 4 people in at a time in order to "be efficient." It was really eery and depressing to know that I was standing in the same room as people who were waiting to die. I felt really guilty for being upset about my broken camera at that moment, but then sad because I had to depend on my phone to take pictures so I wouldn't forget anything.

After the crematorium, we had had enough. The whole concentration camp was absolutely beautiful. Everything was full of color, which made me even more sad because I know that 60 years ago people may have appreciated the beauty, but they were at such a different point in their life that they weren't sure if they'd every see the light of day again, or if they even wanted to. Even the silence of Dachau was enough to make me want to leave. No one felt the need to talk, and if someone had a question, they asked with barely a whisper. It was as if talking would mean disrespecting the history of the place.

Although it was a really heavy experience, I am really glad that I made the trip to Dachau. The past year and a half, with all of my Italian and Human Persons classes, I have not been able to escape Primo Levi, Giorgio Bassani, Carlo Levi, and many other Italian writers who survived Auschwitz and other concentration camps. But no paragraph in those novels comes remotely close to what it feels like to stand in the open grounds looking around and picturing everything that had happened there.

After about 2 hours, we slowly made our way back to Oktoberfest where we were to meet with our group to board the bus, and travel the 8 hours back to Florence. I was not impressed with all the drunk people on our bus, especially the kid in front of me who decided to yack the first 10 minutes of the bus ride, and then of course he had to end the trip how it began, a he yacked again in the last 5 minutes. Obviously not as many people are as bright as we were about motion sickness and drinking. Anyways, the bus ride was not as exciting as the one from the Amalfi Coast in that we watched terrible movies (with the exception of Wedding Crashers, which everyone was so excited to finally have a good movie that we spent a good minute clapping and cheering and turning off our lights so we could actually what that movie.)

And then our bittersweet weekend came to an end. My camera is still deciding it it wants to die or just be in a coma, and the reminder of Oktoberfest in constant whenever I want to check the time and I look down only to feel the other blow Oktoberfest presented me with. At least my watch can be fixed when I get home; the camera on the other hand, well I might have to just pull the plug on that one. It's not looking so good. Finally, the last reminders of Oktoberfest are 2 little purple and blue marks on the back of my hands. From what, you may ask. The heavy German Steins, of course! Yes, I have bruises on the backs of my hands from holding beers. Family, you should be so proud. I refer to them as battle wounds from the time Germany defeated me. Touche, Germany. Till we meet again, which may be never, I haven't decided yet.