Welcoming Oktober

Well, I've been in Germany for over a month now. So much has happened! I've been through orientation, where I was "trained" to teach English to students, I found an apartment, I have a consistent work schedule, I've taught three lessons and sat in on or helped in countless more, I'm officially a student at the Universität zu Köln, I've seen the view from the top of the Cologne cathedral, I've visited Beethoven's house, attended a concert celebrating Beethoven, and as of two weeks ago, I've spent a weekend in Bayern and experienced Oktoberfest.


The first weekend of October was a three-day weekend since Germany was celebrating the reunification of East and West Germany. It was a perfect opportunity to visit my friend Isabel, and it also happened to be the last few days of Oktoberfest. Isabel lives near Freising, a college town about 30 minutes from Munich. After my classes were over on Friday, I caught a train from Cologne to Munich, and then jumped on a regional train out to Freising. One of her roommates, Sarfraaz, was kind enough to pick me up at the train station in his new car, so I didn't have to wait an hour to catch the only bus running out toward her house. The three of us had a delicious dinner made by Isabel, then met a friend of Sarfi's who arrived on a motorcycle, and spent a few hours chatting. The next day, we were supposed to meet some more of Sarfi's friends at Oktoberfest in the morning, so we had to get up around 7 to make sure we were downtown in time.

We arrived in Munich around 9 and things were already crowded. We met Sarfi's friends in the Hofbräu tent. You know, everybody always talks about the Hofbräuhouse in downtown Munich? This is their Oktoberfest tent. But really, the word "tent" isn't quite accurate. It's more like a huge warehouse with a mostly fabric roof. We got lucky and found a table for the four of us near the larger group of Sarfi's friends. Let me tell you, it is a weird feeling to be in a gigantic tent surrounded by very boisterous people slugging down what are basically pitchers of beer when you haven't even had lunch yet. The place was packed.

Outside

Inside. Not really sure what the guy in the white t-shirt is doing...

Think of how full the Whitworth Fieldhouse is for Midnight Madness or a really big basketball game, roughly double that, and you'll get an idea how full this place was. I can't even really explain what it was like. Madness. People dressed up in traditional clothes, tourists with their giant cameras, locals and foreigners sitting around the same table. It's kind of amazing. And the waitresses are seriously the strongest people I've ever seen. 

She's probably carrying 10 of those giant suckers!

I've heard about the waitresses at Oktoberfest, but hearing and seeing are two completely different things. It is incredible. No joke, these women carry between 10 and 12 liters of beer from a distant corner of the tent to your table. The steins they come in are made out of thick glass and are roughly the size of a medium-large vase. I have no idea how they manage to carry so much in one trip for the entire day. After maybe two runs my arms wouldn't function anymore.

The atmosphere in the tent is quite lively. You pretty much have to shout to be heard by your neighbor, and then there's a live band that plays German drinking songs or songs like John Denver's "Country Roads." They also played a version of "Happy Birthday" for somebody too. We stayed for several hours, just soaking it in and sampling the Oktoberfest brew. Prost!

Isabel, Me, Sebastian, and Sarfi. On the left - our new Italian friends.
It should probably also be noted that yes, I did drink responsibly.

The whole weekend we had beautiful weather. Sarfi wanted to get some more driving practice, so on Sunday we drove out to Schondorf am Ammersee, a nice lake southwest of Munich. We walked around for a little bit and had lunch. There are tons of boats of all kinds, from paddle boat rentals to rowboats, sailboats and motorboats.

Another of Isabel's housemates, Martin, took us hiking in the mountains on Monday. He and his girlfriend have the most well-behaved dog I've ever met. The three of us and Herr Nando (the dog) drove south into the mountains to hike two peaks called Roß- und Buchstein. It was something like a 900-meter elevation gain in about two hours. I'm not sure the total distance, but the trail sure was steep! Parts were a pretty slick with mud and rocks, so it made for a fun hike. But the view from the top was unbelievable.

Destination: the big rock peaks at the top.

Just some houses in the middle of the mountains.

I think Austria is somewhere over there.

Isabel and Martin at the top. The peak just behind them is Roßstein, elevation 1698 m.

Same houses as before, but another several hundred meters up.

Herr Nando. Best dog ever.

Me, Martin, and Isabel

Proof I was there - at the Buchstein summit marker, elevation 1701 m.

The hut between the two peaks.
You can get snacks and drinks there if you want!

In the last photo, behind the hut is the approach to Roßstein. There isn't really a trail; it's more like you climb up the rocks to get to the top. Isabel and Martin did it, but I don't trust myself with free-climbing at elevation. Besides, somebody had to stay with Nando!

It was about a 5-hour hike, with something like a 1.5 hour drive each direction. I needed to catch my train back to Cologne in the late afternoon, so they dropped me off at the Munich Hauptbahnhof around 3:30. I got myself some lunch/dinner/snack-type food (a döner, the most brilliant food ever created, and a pretzel for the train), then hopped on the train around 4:30 or something. It's about a 5 hour ride back to Cologne, plus another 40 minutes or so to get from there to my apartment, so I got home around 11:30. Then I went straight to bed: catching a train at 6:24 in the morning is brutal!

What a fantastic weekend. It was good to see and talk with Isabel after having a month in the classroom and have a long weekend doing something fun with real people. All of the housemates I met were awesome, super friendly, and really great to hang out with. It was a nice change to be able to do some recreating with other people.

That's the thing about living by yourself: you're constantly doing things alone. You wake up and eat breakfast alone, go to work, come home, make dinner alone, and then watch a movie or work on lesson plans alone. Social contact isn't as often as one might imagine outside of school. At times it's nice, though. I can wear as little or as much clothing as I want provided I stay away from the window, leave my stuff all over the table, and arrange things however the heck I want. It can also be pretty lonely. There are days when I don't say much just because there's nobody to talk to.

But I started a class on German literature this past Tuesday. I met a guy from the States whose brother lived in Bellevue for a few years! I think the class is going to be great. Like a lot of university classes back home, the first day was mostly orientation and introductions. The professor is really friendly and seemed to be pretty flexible on what he was going to teach, asking us what kind of writers were were interested in. The course is actually designed for exchange students or students doing study abroad programs, so there were tons of people from all over the world: from China, Greece, Britain, Luxembourg, Poland, and some others. It's so crazy! And awesome. I'm really excited to see what we're going to learn next week.