When my roommates and I started planning our Oktoberfest trip, all the way back in September, we wanted to go with a huge group of people. We started by asking all of our friends, got a group of about ten to go, and started looking into different Airbnb’s and hostels, and what the cheapest way to get there was. The more we looked into the trip; the more people started dropping out, and soon we were left with four people: my roommates Bella and Joji, and our friend Sophia.
We decided to go the opening weekend of the festival, which was towards the end of September. We left on Thursday night, a few hours after my last class of the day, which gave me plenty of time to procrastinate packing. This was also our first time travelling while in Florence, so we had to figure out the bus station at Villa Constanza. We took a bus overnight to get to Munich, we got on around 10 pm, and arrived at around 7 am. Since we got to Germany so early, we couldn’t check into our hostel yet, so we had to find a way to kill time.
None of us really realized how cold Munich was going to be compared to Florence, so we decided to kill some time at the mall. On the cab ride there, our driver was trying to point out different landmarks, and suggested many places for us to visit. When we got to the mall, none of the stores were open, so we sat in the lounge area for about an hour, charging our phones. We then found a little grocery store in the mall and bought breakfast.
After we bought some warmer clothes in the mall, we headed towards our hostel. It was about 10 am at this point so the hostel was completely empty. Workers were still setting up for the upcoming weekends by laying out rows after rows of tents. It was actually a good idea to go during the first weekend, because the campsite that we stayed at was nice and clean, not destroyed by hundreds of drunk students yet.
Once we dropped our bags off in our tents, we decided to spend the rest of the day exploring the city by going to the English Gardens and going for a bike ride.
The next day is when the festival began. Sophia and I decided to wear the traditional dirndl, and it made me feel like I was really participating in the festival. We started the day with the costume parade outside of the festival. Although we were standing in the cold for a couple hours, I loved watching the parade. There was a variety of floral decorated floats.
None of us had any idea of what this trip was going to be like, or what Oktoberfest actually was. In my mind Oktoberfest was a big open space with different food and beer stands. Instead, Oktoberfest was like a carnival. There were different kinds of food stands all around the festival, but also different types of games and rides scattered around.
There was much smaller focus on beer than I thought there would be. The only way to get beer was to go inside one of the beer tents, which was more of a building than a tent. The beer tents were extremely difficult to get into, you either needed to make a reservation or get to the festival early in the morning. We ended up having to go inside and found a group of friends to sit with to order beer. It was extremely overpriced, and none of us could (or wanted to) finish our drink.
After that we continued to explore the festival, we wove through the swarms of tourists like us trying to find our way around. Around us were children screaming on roller coasters, the ringing and banging of carnival games, and the shifting scent of either sweet, caramelized nuts, or the savory bratwurst being handed out everywhere.
We finished off the day by going on the giant ferris wheel and saw the magnificent view of the festival going on beneath us. We saw thousands of people buying food, drinking with their friends, playing games, and being obnoxiously drunk.
Oktoberfest was one of the best experiences I’ve had while abroad. It was my first trip outside of Florence, and I got to work the kinks out of travelling with my friends. Although it was hectic, and overwhelming at times, I got the chance to meet so many new people from all over the world and experience an entirely new cultural celebration.
Francesca's travels 