Oktoberfest

The minute we found out we were moving to Aberdeen, the first thing we did was book our hotel for Oktoberfest.  It's been on my bucket list for years and it was going on the weekend before Ram's birthday, so it was a no-brainer. I wish it would have been just as easy to get tickets to a tent. I kept reading that they sell tent tickets in May.  On May 1st my stalking began.  Day after day it said tickets will be sold in May.  In mid-May I finally emailed the Hippodrome Tent (this is one of the most famous tents and one of the larger ones) and they responded that they will start selling tickets at the end of May.  May 31st rolls around and the site says tickets are not on sale yet.  I checked 3 different times on this day.  After persistently checking the site daily, on June 3rd I looked and they were SOLD OUT.  How could they do that to me?! I frantically tried to email other tents for availability and just when I was about to curl up in a ball and cry, Ram found a tent that had tickets available for Saturday night at 6:30pm with a live band.  It's important to have tickets because that guarantees you a seat and when you have a seat, you get served.  Otherwise you are SOL.  Phew, at least on Saturday night we were golden! Or so we thought.  More on that later....

Luckily our hotel was a 2 min walk away from the grounds.  The minute we walked in we were surrounded by carnival rides, food stands with schnitzels, bratwurst, ice cream and beer.  Row after row of beer tents. This was like the rodeo on steroids (and my happy place for the weekend). Each tent sold beer from a different brewery in Munich.  Only beers that are brewed in Munich are allowed to be sold at Oktoberfest.

Bucket List, check! 

Wish we could've gone in there....

One of the many types of rides...

We lucked out and got into the Löwenbräu tent on Friday night. After 30 min of trying to find an open spot at a table (and trying to get past the language barrier), this guy indicated to me that if we stand near his table the waitress will serve you. I was skeptical at first but when she came by he nudged me over and a glorious 10 minutes later we were sipping on these bad boys: 

That first sip of beer tasted SO good.  Though we ended up standing the whole time, we chugged 3 of those beers (each) in no time.  Sufficiently intoxicated, we agreed to go on a carnival ride at my brother's request. Needless to say that didn't go over too well with somebody's stomach, but I won't call anyone out (it wasn't me). 

The next day, I decided I needed to take it easy to I stayed back in the room.  After all we wouldn't need to spend hours looking for a spot in a tent because we had reservations at night! My brother and Ram went ahead and bonded over a few more beers.  As 5pm rolled around, I got up and changed back into by dirndl (a traditional dress that all the girls wore, which I had courtesy of my friend Nary).  Tent tickets in hand, we proudly walked through the festival IN THE RAIN in search of our tent.  Of course we weren't prepared for rain, but we were on a mission. About 20 min into our search and officially soaked, we started asking people if they knew where the tent was located.  Sure enough the language barrier grew increasingly frustrating as people pointed in opposite directions, "it's 100 meters that way," or "its on the other side of the row."  It was now 6:30pm and we had 30 min to find our tent or we would lose our reservation.  Half-frozen and sopping wet, I pulled out my trusty iphone to look up the tent.  And there it was in black and white, "This tent is actually in the city centre, 30 minutes away from Oktoberfest." NEIN!!!!!! How did we miss that when we booked?! Oh I know, it's because we were so happy to find a tent that was available we just assumed...well you know what they say what happens when you assume something.  So we dragged our wet asses back to our hotel, changed and partied it up in the lobby.  It was still the best weekend ever and I wouldn't have changed any part of it!