Belgium Internship: Oktoberfest

First night

On the first night, I checked into the campsite while having my first litre of beer. Then I set up my tent so I could head out to the city. I intended to go to Oktoberfest first but then I stumbled upon a very nice beer gardens that I later learned was close to Oktoberfest. I also learned that it is better to stay there since Oktoberfest was probably already full.

At the back is where the beer was being served. There was a guy continuously pouring beer and people just grab one if they want. I found it to be a very efficient way to distribute the beer. Towards the middle of the location was a live band that played pretty much all night. There was also some very good food that was served in cafeteria style near the beer.

I ate some of the food and had a few beers here. At the start, I sat and talked with one guy from Germany and another from the Philipines. Towards the end of the night, after the band was done, I ended up talking to two people from South Africa and three others from Poland.

After I just left to go back and sleep in my tent.

First Full Day
On my first full day in Munich, I got to Oktoberfest around 10:30 and immediately got my first beer. Getting a beer here was more difficult than the day before. Eventually, I figured out they only serve to a table so I went and sat one. After a few beers outside I decided to go into one of the tents. Most of the tables inside the tents were reserved so I had to go around it looking for people to let me join their table. It actually was not very hard since there was a lot of people who were quite happy to let others join. I ended up talking to lots of people from the US and Europe.

During this day I was surprised by a few things. One of them was the sheer size of the Oktoberfest. It was like a small city with its own streets and everything set up. There was little stores along these streets, as well as the entrances to the big beer tents. Another thing was how many beers the servers could carry. I swear there were some women about half my size carrying 3 or 4 beers in each hand!!!. There was also rides and other attractions within the Oktoberfest and I didn't really expect that. I have included photos of most of these at the end of the post.

When I got back to my tent I discovered that it had been blown down by the wind. It turned out setting up a tent after many beers is harder than setting it up sober. I was able to do it, but it was windy throughout the whole night and I thought it may blow done again.

Second Full Day
The tents opened later on this day since it was a Monday, so I decided to go to the Deutsches Museum for a few hours. It is a massive museum with 6 floors and they are very substantial floors. The exhibits I saw include the aviation, marine navigation, mining, computing, physics, energy, microelectronics, and astronomy ones. The mining one was very cool since most of it was made to look like you were in a mine. The marine navigation and aviation ones were also very cool and I have included a few photos at the end. The energy one included information on nuclear, petroleum, wind, solar, and many others. The energy one also had a bike you could ride to see how much energy you could produce, and as you produced more some electronics came alive. Unfortunately, it is so large that in 4 hours I could only see about half of it.

After seeing the museum I went back to the Oktoberfest. I went to a few tables and talked to some people while drinking beer. One table I was at was with a bunch of rowdy Italians and they were very fun. I figured out to get a beer without a table you have to ask a waiter and they will ask one of the tables if it is alright to serve an extra beer at their table. This gave a new to obtain a beer.

Two of the tents I went to apparently are frequented by celebrities. A friend of mine told me that Arnold Schwarzenegger goes every year. I was told that he was there on Saturday (when I was at the beer garden place). Also, this article says he was there with his family, but I don't know when that was.

Last Day
It was mostly uneventful except for all of my trains being delayed.

I should also mention that next time I will probably buy a lederhosen since it seemed like most others were had. It may also increase beer drinking ability but I am not too sure about that

This photo shows one of the rollercoasters at the Oktoberfest