Prost!

Sorry I've been missing the last month.  I've been back to Colorado, evacuated a house, moved to a new apartment in London, worked and gone a trip.  Needless to say I've been a little busy.  Luckily I had a mini break from life this weekend in a wonderful place called Oktoberfest- Munich.

To start things off right,  Robert and I went to Hofbrauhaus for dinner with 1000 of our closest friends.  We sat at a table with some friendly Germans.  Luckily we spoke the common language of pointing and beer.  They showed me how to properly hold a stein (3 in one hand in fact!), count while drinking (Einz, zwei, ZUFFA!!), and that the crispy part of the Schweinshaxe aka pork knuckle is worth drooling over (well... at least the Germans think so).  I also learned that as a kid I didn't like potato dumplings and nothing has changed.  If my mom had been here I would have given her mine!

The next day we went to the Munich Residenz.  The Bavarian royalty lived here for hundreds of years.  Each king would add a new wing or add more gold filagree to the walls.  Their Tresury also put the Crown Jewels to shame.  I swear one of the crowns had over 1000 diamonds on it.  We also went to the largest engineering and technology museum in the world.  Basically, if you have a 9 year old obsessed about something you should bring them here.  They will learn more than they ever could have imagined. 

Now, let's get back to why I really came to Munich:  Oktoberfest.  One night we didn't have anything to drink, but instead wandered the festival and checked out some of the tents.  Each tent has a different theme and decorations.  In one of the tents they only played top-40 hits in another the top-10 traditional german songs.  No matter where you went people were having a good time.  We also went on top of this huge ferris wheel to look out on the festival.  The view was amazing from the top.

The next night we DID Oktoberfest.  It was a Monday afternoon when we found our way to the tent and straight away found two seats near the band.  I love how international our tent was and as the drinks were flowing we all started speaking the same language!  There was an old German man who kept filling the table with steins.  Agnes who was our sweet waitress who could carry more than her weight in beer.  Simon, Nikki and Johannus were our new German friends who helped us understand the songs.  Our two Hungarian guys who loved my smile and a guy from Penn State who what to take a picture with me to send to his daughter in Afghanistan.  I loved my weekend in Munich and would recommend Oktoberfest to everyone.  It is tough to explain the atmosphere of Oktoberfest other than be ready to meet lots of new friends, go home with songs stuck in your head, and a smile that will stay on your face for days!

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit 
Der Gemütlichkeit!!!