Day 4 recap ---- Ein Prosit

Travel day back to the group.

Our experience at Oktoberfest started out back at the Hofbrauhaus. We hung out with a couple from Perth who were into the 3rd week of an 8 week vacation. They were fun. He was an ex physiologist and she was a triathlete. A couple from the Bronx joined us as well. They were to say the least entertaining. After our time there, a couple people wanted to shop for drindl and lederhosen.

We had an awesome time at Oktoberfest. The Volksfest is nothing like I imagined. Take the Texas State fair and put it on massive dosage of steroids; you are starting to get close. There is a midway, food and of course beer. Germans love beer. To many Germans, it is a food. True German beer contains only 4 ingredients: water, malt, hops, and yeast. That's it! Adding wheat or anything else, does not make it a true beer by German standards. These additions were originally forbidden by the Reinheitsgebot (German beer purity law).

http://www.germanbeerguide.co.uk/styles.html

There are 9 permanent beer tents at Volksfest. We spent most of time in the loudest craziest tent of all. The Lowenbrau tent. It was insane and fun. The band played covers of American pop tunes. So we sang along with. Once we closed that tent down we were forced to find non-beer related fun. So, we wandered over to the Wienzelt, the wine tent, to continue the night. It was crazy in there. When you read to website dedciated to this tent, it refers to it as a classy place....right. In their dreams. Wine drinkers are no different than beer drinkers after drinking too much.  By our best estimates, we each consumed at least 5 Maß (5 liters).  Maß means a measure. It's also known as a masskrug. A mass holds 3 bottles of beer. So we drank up!. And, that doesn't include the champange we drank at the Wienzlet. We closed this tent down and found a bar to close down on our way back to our room. We were among the Bierleichen; which means beer corpses on the train back to our group.

We finally wandered back to our hostel. everyone should experience this as well. We were booked in a room designated for 8 by the number of beds. But, there were so many more bodies in there than that. It was coed. It was an experience. Bodies laying all over and in every manner of clothes or lack there of. I was fortunate enough to get a bed. My upper bunk mate was male and hairy. I thought it was a bear at first sight. But, then I realized I was still a little impaired.