By Lissandra Radu
Before Christmas, the Erasmus society organised a trip to OKTOBERFEST! Keeping in mind that my only experience with beer is going to the pub’s beer garden, I had absolutely no expectation of what the day would be like. We left Vienna on the Thursday evening, taking a night party train to Munich where the festival takes places.
Tip no. 1: Do NOT get *too* drunk on the train as you will have to nurse your hangover for 14 hours at a beer festival.
Tip no. 2: Invest in traditional dress, a dirndl for girls or lederhosen for boys, although I wore an adaptation of the male outfit. The whole dressing up process puts you in the mood for partying and you really feel as part of the event!
The festival itself can only be described as an adult Disneyland, where instead of princess houses you have massive beer tents where a band plays traditional German songs and people bang their 1 litre jugs of beer in tune. It was fantastic!
The first part of the day we spent in a tent where we had booked tables, drinking beer (or if you do not like beer, you can have a Radler which is essentially beer watered down with lemonade!) and eating chicken or pretzels. The second part we moved around different tents, each with a slightly different atmosphere, in search for a table that would fit all 15 of us. Turns out people actually book these tables a year in advance, so as you can guess, we did not have much luck but it was definitely a lot of fun.
In hindsight, the trip was definitely a whole new experience and I am gutted I did not get to try the caramelised almonds, which are supposedly to die for. Personally, as I am not an avid admirer of beer, Oktoberfest might not be the ideal festival for me. However, having said that, it is a great place to have a lot fun with your friends and a very good excuse for day drinking J.