The Great Adventure (Part 1)

It has now been about 4 days since we miraculously made it back to Hamar, and I think I've now been here long enough now to write about Europe. Which is not to say that everything resides in a perfect state of memory in my mind or anything, but I will try to relate the highlights and the minutiae and the train travel as best as I can. I'll start by rating the trip though: it definitely gets two thumbs up. I will continue by saying that I don't want these entries to reach epic lengths, so the one big trip will be divided into several shorter travelogues. This only matters because I may write one section every hour or one section every day or something but it won't be long before I detail the entire great adventure. Without any further rambling, I'm going to talk about Germany. As a little background, we knew we would be traveling into Bremen from the very beginning because that is where the illustrious Ryan Air flies to out of Norway. This being the case, we had planned to stay in Bremen for a night and then take the train down to Munich for Oktoberfest. The only problem with this plan was that we only had one night booked at a hostel in Munich and we woud have to find somewhere to stay between our night in Bremen and our night in Munich. Berlin, Dusseldorf, and even the forest were floated as possible ideas. Thankfully we ended up booking two nights in Berlin, cancelling the hostel in Bremen, and setting ourselves up for 3 more hours of travel on Day 1. So taking a few steps back, we took the train to (Oslo) Torp, as Ryan Air calls it, which is seemingly about as close to Oslo as L.A. is to Phoenix. This train ride was followed by a bus ride followed by a plane ride followed by a tram ride followed by another train ride. It was somewhat excessive. But we made it, even with 5 crazy guys next to us knocking back a fifth of vodka and a 30 pack of beer over the course of the flight. This reminds me, if you have not heard of Ryan Air or are hazy on the details you should check out their website: www.ryanair.com. It is truly a classy organization all around. I mean, if you ignore their strict alcohol policy of allowing anyone to drink anything from anywhere while on their plane. And if you ignore their flight plan of ascending to cruising altitude as quickly as possible without stalling the plane. Lest it seem I am becoming sarcastic here, I will say truthfully that it wasn't that bad and that the flight was very very very cheap. So thank you Ryan Air. Snapping back to the end of our travels, then, we arrived in Berlin in the late evening and decided on Chinese food at the place directly adjacent to our hostel. Its convenience was matched only by the quality of the food, which admittedly might have had something to do with the fact that we were all extremely hungry and extremely sick of being on trains/trams/planes. Thus ended Day 1. Day 2 began with a wonderfully cheap breakfast where a Hungarian employee humorously offered his thoughts on the U.S. vice presidential debate, intermittently accompanied by youtube videos of Matt Damon making fun of Sarah Palin. That cereal was good. Given the time that we had (1 day) and the budget that we had (pretty much none), we decided on a free tour. Ours was guided by an Irishman who got degrees in history and theater at Kentucky and used both of these degrees extensively during his tour. Over 3+ hours, we saw and learned about the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, Hitler's bunker, the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Wall, various old Soviet buildings, and many many more. The overarching theme of the tour was Berlin's incredibly long and sometimes checkered past, which some members of our party found more interesting than others. Despite the length of the tour, it was still easy to feel as if you hadn't seen 1/4 of the city and hadn't heard a tenth of the history. So what did we do after our interest was piqued and we felt as if we had only seen a small fraction of the city? We went back to the Brandenburg Gate and partied, of course. The day that we were there just happened to be Reunification Day, the anniversary of East and West Berlin's...reunification. The Germans apparently celebrate this event with beer and music, which makes it different from the Fourth of July only due to the conspicuous lack of fireworks. Our experience of this festival was somewhat short-lived, but it was full of bratwursts and pretzels and a Ton of people. Then a little bit more sightseeing on the way to the nearest underground station and it was back to the hostel where we reflected on how happy we were not to be in Bremen. Day 3 upped the ante in terms of beer, bratwursts, and Tons of people because Day 3 was the day when we arrived in Munich for Oktoberfest. We left early in the morning, arrived mid-afternoon, and met a few of Breanne's friends in the middle of Munich. Already I was beginning to sense the sheer population that was residing in Munich, and I was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic. But when we all decided to visit Oktoberfest that evening (as was not exactly in the original plan), I learned the true meaning of "a lot of people". Stepping onto the fairgrounds was somewhat akin to the first time you attend a rock concert or the first day at kindergarten. By this I mean primarily that there were more people in one place than I had ever seen to that point. Major fire hazard, to be sure. Somehow, we made it into a beer garden that first evening and in the interest of portraying PLU as an upstanding and mature institution (since I've been informed that my blog reflects on them somehow. I'm sorry, PLU) I will refrain from any more narrative regarding that evening/night. The next morning was an Oktoberfest morning, and we managed to get into one of the major tents for the last day of the festival. Between the people, the band, the decorations, the lederhosen, the pretzels, the food, the liters of beer and the songs I must admit that this place was like nowhere I've ever been. Oktoberfest really is all it's cracked up to be, and we all felt strangely privileged to take part in it. The food was fantastic: I had half a roast chicken with the most delicious seasoning ever and a great soup. The people were friendly: the Austrians in lederhosen behind us taught us the lyrics to the songs the band played. The glasses of beer were big: 1 liter for 8 euros. I could continue, but I will instead just say that it is an experience that really is for everyone and if you ever happen to be in Germany at the right time don't hesitate to go. I don't mean to say "you had to be there", but unfortunately I just don't have the skills or the frame of reference or whatever to accurately describe it. And this was all before 1 PM. I don't even want to think about what it's like at night in one of those tents. We left for Austria that afternoon, and I'm going to end this portion of the travelogue on that cliffhanging note because I have laundry to do.