I finally got to meet up with Laura Maffucci for drinks this week, and thanks to Uncle Andy for the restaurant recommendation! There are a bunch of UC Davis kids coming to Spain now to study, and while I'm so glad we got to overlap for a bit I may have to avoid your facebook pages and pictures for the first few weeks that I'm back in the states so I don't get too jealous of your adventures still to come in Madrid! Hope you all enjoy it as much as I have :)
On Tuesday, we got to celebrate Beth's birthday upon her return from Paris! I think the part of me that was going through crafting-withdrawals (some part of my soul realized it was supposed to be recruitment week) was really excited to decorate the balcony with streamers and balloons we got from the dollar store and a bunch of posters, candles, new tablecloth for our...less-than-perfect-condition table, cake, ice cream, Los Molinos wine (of course), champagne flutes of sorbet - the works. It was so much fun to surprise her after work and to celebrate her birthday Tetuán style!
Wednesday crossed another outing off of my final bucket list - a tapas/bar crawl in La Latina! It's a really young, fun barrio (also where the flea market El Rastro takes place) and is extremely well known throughout Madrid for it's night- (and sometimes afternoon-) life, centered around bar hopping and tapas trying! It was so much fun, Elan, Ian, Aline, and I took Sarah for her first time to Wednesday 1 Euro Montaditos, and met up with Jose to start our tapas crawl after that! The street called Calle Cava Baja is the most famous in La Latina, and is literally just one long street lined completely with small festive bars and cute restaurants to walk up and down, with deals like buckets of beers and wine and tapas! This is definitely an activity I'm going to miss a LOT in the states! Included in our list were Casa Lucas, La Perejila (my personal favorite, decorated in a really authentic and festive Flamenco/Andalusian tribute), Taberna Tempranillo, and Taberna Taxkoli!
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| in El Tigre...of course! |
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| Birthday Bucket of Beers! |
Thursday was spent getting ready for Oktoberfest, I had to go out and buy a longsleeve shirt and zip up sweatshirt because all I have in Madrid were sundresses, shorts and tanktops...as I would come to learn Madrid is not characteristic of the rest of Europe in terms of weather. I got up at 4:30 am to take a taxi to the airport (the metro wasn't even open yet!) and (after a popped tire literally 2 minutes from the terminal) took a flight to Munich at sunrise! One of the prettiest flights I have ever been on...well the part of it I was awake for. And I think I might be the only person in the world, but surprise surprise, I like airplane food. Thanks Lufthansa! After my last Ryanair flight, this airline was like a dream come true! I was the first of our group to arrive in the Munich airport, but it was so huge I had plenty to do to keep me busy...luxury stores, tons of amazing bars and restaurants, and free coffee from the airlines kept me busy until I collected Laura and then Kelley, a new friend who was flying from/studying abroad in Copenhagen but actually goes to Davis as well! My first impression of Germany was that everyone was extremely nice, friendly, and helpful, spoke perfect English, and everything was really clean and above all, efficient (a huge departure from the Spanish culture and lifestyle I've grown accustomed to). We had our first German beer in the Munich airport and then headed out to our campsite - home for the next 2 nights!
The campsite, called Wiesn Camp (literally translated to "Grass Camp") is made specifically and temporarily for the 3 weeks of Oktoberfest, and consists of a fenced off area with tons of security, rows upon rows of small 4-man camping tents, a few camper/trailer things (for the lucky ones who booked almost a year in advance), a bar and restaurant tent, and temporary showers and bathrooms. Welcome to the wonderful world of European camping! Apparently though, especially in Spain, it's very common for young people to do because it's definitely the cheapest option for traveling. I'm sure they must have been a bit more well-prepared than we were. But more on that later...
We decided that we were getting a late enough start as it is, and so we bought a "stein" each, the typical beer mug that you think of when you think about drinking in Germany (about 2 liters we've heard?) while we waited in line to check in (I really wanted to keep the stein but the things were so heavy! Literally this is embarrassing but my arms were so sore by the end of the weekend from holding them! Dad, that definitely would have put my suitcase over the weight limit...), dropped off our stuff at our tent, and headed out to Oktoberfest! It was about a 10 minute walk to the train station, and on the way we were persuaded to buy authentic German hats, and thank goodness we did because once we got to Oktoberfest - everyone was dressed up in the authentic lederhosen (for guys) and drindels (for girls) - native Germans and tourists alike! We wanted to get some for ourselves to have the full experience, but the experience was worth enough to us minus the 120 euro (almost $200!) it would have cost for the get-ups!
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| Camping...so excited about it! |
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| Waiting in line to check in...first steins of the trip! |
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| First German beers! In the Munich Airport |
The first order of business was to split an enormous pretzel - they were everywhere in Munich! Even in the store window advertisements, all of the models were posing with them! Once we got to Oktoberfest, we were met with a scene that is beyond what you would expect of the spectacle. It's an enormous, enormous carnival complete with rides, a million food vendors, souvineer stands, and of course, the beer tents. The word "tent" is deceiving, however, because there are 8 or 10 "tents" for each of the authentic and uniquely German-produced beer companies that are allowed presence in the festival, and even though they are only assembled for the 3 weeks of the festival, they are huge, cavernous enormous open space buildings full to capacity with tables, drunk people having the time of their lives, authentic German decorations, music, and shouts of "PROST!" (the German "cheers") accompanied by slamming of steins against one another. No wonder they were so heavy, they had to be extremely fortified to sustain that kind of force! Each tent was adjoined with a Beer Tent on the side, basically the same thing but a little smaller and outdoors. We didn't think we were even going to get into a tent, but got lucky outside one of the most popular ones, Hofsbrau, when everyone started yelling "Get Ready!!" We grabbed hands, heard a whistle blow, and literally sprinted into the tent with the rest of the crowd, and got in! Next step: find a table. The tables go for about 300 Euro apiece, and require reservations of about a year in advance. But, you won't get served anything if you're not standing at a table. So, operation "find someone to crash their table" commenced and was actually a huge success - a bunch of guys from Holland let us hop up on their table, sing together, and order more rounds of steins! It was so much fun, they played everything from "Sweet Caroline" to the German drinking song that came on every 3rd or 4th song, and it was exactly what you would picture - lots of drunk and beer-happy people with their arms around each other, singing to whatever song was playing (regardless of whether or not they knew the words), slamming their steins against each other and making new friends. SO much fun! However, after we switched tables and got yelled at in German for "table-hopping" (our new German friends came to our defense and it was fine!) we eventually left that tent in search of some authentic German sauerkraut and sausage - not difficult to find. Accompanied by some sweet (too sweet, we couldn't really think about them the rest of the weekend without feeling nauseous!) roasted almonds, (aaaand perhaps another wienerschnitzel as a late night snack) it was quite the German dinner! We made it to another tent called Lowenbrau before the festival closed down at 11:30, took the train back to our campsite and settled down for the coldest, most uncomfortable night sleep ever.
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| German Wienerschnitzel |
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| Inside the Hofbrau tent! |
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| People wore these cookies around their neck as necklaces...I would have eaten it |
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| Our first giant pretzel! |
Needless to say, the next day's purchases included a rental of mattress pads and really, really warm thick socks. We got up early (no sleeping in when people are up partying all night at the campsite bar), had breakfast at the campsite and headed back to Oktoberfest. We got lucky again finding a table to latch onto at one of the Beer Gardens, then walked around, shopped, and took in the rest of the sites in the daylight of the rest of the festival. We got some picnic lunch, again more traditional German food of schnitzel (yes! it does actually exist! so does strudel! after that, the rest of the day I couldn't get "bright copper kettles and crisp apple strudel, doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles" from The Sound of Music out of my head!) and some kebab meat (the woman said "is gut (pronounced "goot")...is GERMAN!") on a big grassy hill by a monument that was within the festival, and then ended up being able to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in downtown Munich!
It was a fantastic surprise how stunning the city was, I was absolutely amazed! It was a beautiful mix between a really modern city intertwined with a lot of old architecture, cathedrals, churches, and huge towers that we got to go up in and see the view from the top! I had no idea that Munich was such an incredible city in its own right, and would love to go back one day to Munich as well as several other German cities to explore them in full. We walked around, shopped, hung out at cafés (where you got to sit on porch swings and wrap blankets around yourselves!), stumbled across an adorable outdoor market, and had (another) traditional German dinner of prepared pork and these odd potato balls!
All in all, I absolutely loved Germany and Oktoberfest lived up to all the hype I had heard about. I had an amazing week and weekend, per usual, and as much as all of these events are reminding me of how much I am loving Europe and Spain, I am getting so excited for my parents to come in just 3 days for a new adventure: Burr family EuroTrip! I absolutely can't wait, and I am so lucky that as sad as I'm going to be to leave here (I can't think about it quite yet...still in denial...) I am getting so excited to see everyone back at home!
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