A bit on [Süd]Deutschland/Oktoberfest, road trips, and friendship

Bahn fahren ist super!...reads a sticker on my coffee mug. I forgot how true this statement is. Everyone likes a good roadtrip with friends, right? Now imagine taking a road trip with 60 complete strangers. It's a thing of beauty, sitting in a crowded train car, where you can hear at least 5 different languages, where movies are being watched, babies are crying, people are sleeping, some reading, and some people are even playing card games. Amid all of this culture, however, I managed to have the one, stereotypical, loud American naval nurse sit next to me. Her first words were "oh thank god! someone who speaks english AND german!!! (insert old lady name that I forgot), this girl can help us!" As nice as ol' Margaret was, it frustrated me that she ended up sitting by me, babbling on about the USA and the health care bill. Margaret did teach me one crucial thing on the train ride: apparently buying 100$ traveler's insurance can sometimes save you approximately 18,000$. Yep, Marge and her friend(s) sure were counting their traveler's insurance blessings 7 years ago when a train stopped suddenly causing one of her friends to fall on a train and a subsequent brain trauma. So, the moral of the story is that considering the relative cheapness of traveler's insurance to the actual amount that was forked out on this woman's behalf makes me really want to see the risk-pool scheme for the insurance. What a smokin' deal for anyone who actually needs this type of insurance for whatever reason!
Watching the forested areas of Baden-Württemberg and Bayern fly by me felt refreshing and familiar. This is why window seats are awesome, because you can see the world fly past you in the few hours it takes you to get from one place to the next. I was also loving listening to the melodic sound of the bayerisch accent belonging to a couple of attractive younger guys sitting diagonally behind me. As we passed through the town of Geislingen near Ulm, I wanted to jump out of the train and stay there. It's that German town that Americans dream of going to, or at least it appeared to be from the train.


Anyway, by the time my train arrived in Munich, about 20 minutes late (where's that deutsche punktlichkeit?!!?) I was excited to be rid of Margaret and to see Nelly! There's definitely something great about seeing a close friend in a foreign country, and speaking the language of that country with this person. With each language you learn, there's a different side and level of your personality that comes with it. Knowing someone in two languages is a cool thing, everyone should try to do so. But yeah, I was really looking forward to spending some quality time with a good friend and one of my favorite people to be around. Sunny days in the city are also a great thing, yet for some reason those seem to be rare in Munich for me. Friday belongs - luckily! - to those rare sunny days. Nelly and I headed to the Augustiner Bräu's Innenhof for a quality first beer amongst the lederhosen-and-dirndl-wearing clientele. Right away I loved the place, because the waiter greeted us with my favorite greeting "Grüß Gott!". It was a great atmosphere, in good company. 

The view of the courtyard from our seat!

Basically, to sum up the weekend, Oktoberfest is nuts. Munich itself almost just gives off this party atmosphere and vibe during this time of year. And it makes me thankful not to live there, one weekend is quite enough time to spend around this crazy festival.

Gut, Besser, Paulaner.

Saturday we didn't make it into one of the tents, but we were fortunate enough to have a few Maßes of beer in the Paulaner Biergarten.

Sunday we spent some time in the Hacker-Pschorr "Himmer über Bayern" tent. These few hours were filled with people standing up on the tables, attempting to chug liters of beer at one time. I felt bad for every person who didn't follow through with the challenge, because they definitely got booo-ed like no other. After eating the lowest quality Käsespätzle I've ever consumed, it was time for me to meet up with my Mitfahrgelegenheit (basically the new form of hitchhiking, cheap arranged via the internet, of course) at the U-Bahn station. 

Here I came to a depressing realization that stems from graduating from college, but that I failed to recognize until now. Saying "good-bye" to Nelly on Sunday made me, for the first time, see that I'll probably only ever be able to spend a weekend at a time with all of the friends I grew to love so much during the past four years. Yet it was the little things and moments at Linfield that I cherished so much about my friends. Sitting on Kyle's couch watching Baby Mama three days in a row, throwing water balloons off of the balcony at C301, random times in the library during finals week, coming home and having "domestic disputes" with Nelly, dancing to the talking heads "Nothing but flowers" at 7:30 am, those are the kinds of things that I think most fondly of, just as they are the things that can't just spontaneously happen anymore. Don't get me wrong, I like growing up and the opportunity to be independent, but I wish growing up didn't have to mean losing that closeness - albeit maybe just even from the proximity - to friends. And naturally this pertains to some more than others, as well as to some professors and family members.

I'll look forward to seeing all of you when the opportunity presents itself. 

Until then, with love,

Ashley