This Unimagined Life

Tag: beer

  • Lauren G. Visits! and Canyoning!

    Summer began to turn to Fall and then I had my first guest come out to visit me. My friend Lauren from CA had been visiting her sister in Turkey and flew into Munich for a few days before going back to the States. It was so nice to see a familiar face and have a girlfriend around for a few days (especially a native English speaker!). Showing her around Munich was also fun. I think when you give people a tour of the place you live and see them enjoying it your pride for your city grows a little bit. This was really good for me and just what I needed at the time. We went to a few of the typical tourist spots like the Hofbrauhaus, tried on some dirndls together, and then did a day-drinking tour of the city on our own. This basically means we walked around the city with beers in hand stopping wherever we felt like. At one point we bought beers but forgot to ask the clerk to open them. I figured I’ve seen Alex open a beer using basically any object at his disposal…how hard can it be? I walked over to a metal gate by the park and tried to use it as a lever to pop the cap off. I managed to make myself bleed and draw the attention of an older couple who was obviously German because he produced a bottle opener on the spot for us. I’m going to really have to practice being a better German. By the time we were ready to get some food I was a bit too buzzed to navigate google maps and find the Mexican restaurant I had intended on going to. Instead we ended up as Weisses Bräuhaus and ate until we were ready to burst. This is probably one of the best German meals I’ve had since getting here actually. What follows are the best selection of photos from a huge batch of drunken selfies we took throughout the day.

    One of the last days of Lauren’s visit we decided to rent a car and drive into the mountains of Austria to go canyoning. The weather was absolute shit that day but we’d already made the plans so we just figured if we didn’t go canyoning we could check out a little mountain town. It was raining and freezing cold when we arrived to the town of Haiming in Ötztal and found Fankhauser Rafting. We were still undecided so we went in to get some information. We saw one other group that was there to go rafting but other than that we were the ONLY ones there. After some flip-flopping we decided to just do it. The water is freezing anyway so maybe it wouldn’t matter if the air was cold. We definitely made the right decision. This canyoning tour was even better than the one I did in Slovenia. Our guide Johannes was very experienced and did a great job keeping us alive! 😉 We got to do some rappelling down huge waterfalls which was really fun. Lauren had done some similar things when she was in Australia but nothing like this and she was the perfect person to bring on this tour, she did great, wasn’t afraid, and was having fun. A day like this definitely would be pure torture for some people so I was really happy when she said it’s one of the best things she’s ever done. The big moment for me was toward the end when we approached a spot where we had the option of doing a high jump, lower jump, or slide down the waterfall. We had just come off a pretty high jump so I was feeling some adrenaline. I didn’t necessarily feel the need to do the high jump but wanted to take a look before deciding. I walked up and looked over…it was really high. 15 meters which is about 50 feet. I think the highest I’ve jumped is maybe 40 ft but it wasn’t measured so who knows. Lauren took a look and said she wasn’t going to and that kind of gave me an out so I said I’d skip it as well. The tour guide responded “that’s totally fine, you’d be the first girl I’ve seen do it anyway.” What?! Why would he say that?! Obviously now I have to be the first girl to do it! So I changed my mind and stepped up to the edge. Lauren did her lower jump first while I stood above still trying to decide if I could do it. It took a lot of mental coaching, my body just naturally doesn’t want to follow what my mind is telling it to do. It’s such a weird sensation. Every time I thought I was going to jump I took a tiny step to the edge and then stepped back. It felt like I did this for 5 minutes but Lauren said it was more like 10. Finally I just stepped to the edge where I was supposed to jump from and leaped off. I was supposed to keep my body really straight and rigid but that all went out the window when I jumped. I definitely smacked my ass pretty hard on the water and at the same time that I was experiencing this amazing rush I was also thinking that I probably wouldn’t do a higher jump than that. When I asked the tour guide if I was really the first girl to do it he said I was the first one HE had seen do it. Tricky tricky! After the tour we had a nice tall beer and hot meal in the hut before driving back to Munich. This was such an awesome day and I can’t wait to go back there in the spring or summer when the weather is nicer.

    This is someone else’ video but it’s the same canyon we did our tour of. If you skip ahead to 5:15 you can see the big jump. It gives a rush again just watching it!

  • Top 10 Lessons From My First Oktoberfest

    Lesson #1: In preparation for Oktoberfest I spent a lot of time shopping for a dirndl (the traditional dress the women wear) and making sure I had all the correct pieces to the outfit. This felt a lot like shopping for the prom. I was finally satisfied with what I got and tested out some different hair braiding techniques. Once I had everything on I felt like a princess from a Disney movie. And not in a bad way, this was really fun like when you played dressup as a kid. I left the house feeling a bit awkward like I was going to stick out somehow. I quickly realized that while I may stick out wearing this in America here in Bavaria I couldn’t have blended in more! All that stress of picking the perfect thing only to realize that once you’re at Oktoberfest it really doesn’t matter that much. Yep, same as prom. That being said…dirndls are awesome and I wish I had a dozen to wear all the time.

    Oktoberfest braided hair
    My hair for the first day of Oktoberfest.
    Oktoberfest dirndl and lederhosen
    Alex in his lederhosen and I in my Dirndl at Oktoberfest.

    Lesson #2: Speaking of dirndls. My second lesson was immediately after we entered Oktoberfest. A small blonde girl in dirndl and braids in her hair was sitting on the steps with her head in her hands. Women really appear innocent like little girls in these outfits so my first thought was that she was crying. I was concerned as she was all alone. I stopped Alex and asked him if we should see if she’s alright. Just as I was feeling a bit of shock at him unsympathetically saying no I also saw the pile of vomit in the shrubbery next to her. Nope, not an innocent little girl, just severely intoxicated.

    Lesson #3: The passed out drunks are removed by stretchers. For privacy purposes these stretchers are covered by a plastic yellow tarp. Similar to what a body bag might look like only yellow and with space for air to circulate. So no, there aren’t dead people in there.

    waiting at oktoberfest 2013
    Alex and I smushed between gingham and lederhosen. This was only about 15 minutes in so we were still smiling.

    Lesson #4: This is an IMPORTANT one. If there’s a line at the front of the beer tent you should check the side entrances before standing in that line for an hour with your body pressed against people on all sides of you crushing you to the point of not being able to breathe. Because when you check that side entrance you will find you can walk right in without any wait at all. Seriously, a full hour standing amidst loud, obnoxious drunk people who are so close to you that you feel like you should at least know their names. And I use the term “line” loosely as it isn’t really the right word. More like a horde of people trying to make it to the ropes in the front with no regard for order. And if you think getting closer to the front means you’re closer to getting in, think again. When they do let people in they pick seemingly at random and often from the back of the line. When that happens everyone has to somehow move aside to let the chosen ones through and in those moments I think I could have lifted my feet off the ground and just been suspended in the air by all of the forces pressing against me. And doing all this while still sober? Well, it was like being in a moshpit where everyone is wearing gingham, lederhosen, and dirndls and there is no music.

    Oktoberfest 2013 beer tent line
    Once inside I took a photo of the line at the main entrance. Like a herd of cattle. Stupid cattle. I can say that because I was one of them.
    oktoberfest crowd
    Not the best photo but an idea of the crowd once we entered the biergarten.

    Lesson #5: When we entered through that side entrance with no line I kept feeling like we’d gotten away with something and were about to be caught. But no, we had just been dumb tourists waiting at the front. We were finally in and holy crap what a shit show (in the best way possible)! Having a table would be amazing just so you could sit and people watch all day. Within the first minute I watched a security guard lead a Chinese guy with a Bruce Lee haircut out by his leather jacket. I turned to watch and just as I did Bruce Lee turned to the security guard, leaned in close to his ear and in English but with a thick accent said “YOU…SUNOVAHBITCH!” I still am laughing today when I think of it. Two seconds after that a fight almost broke out next to us for unknown reasons so we decided to make our way through the crowd and attempt to find a beer and our friends. And later still when we made our way to the opposite side of the beer tent we saw Bruce Lee coming right back in like nothing even happened. Sneaky guy. What’s the lesson here? I’m not sure exactly.

    Lesson #6: If you come late in the day on opening day don’t expect to actually get inside the beer tent. Yes, those lines we waited in were just to get into the biergarten outside of the tent. Also, if you don’t have a table (by reservation or pure luck) then you have to follow around a waitress/waiter carrying beers to a table and hope that everyone at that table doesn’t need beer and you can buy one off her there. This could take a good hour which now makes me completely understand why the need for liter size glasses.

    Lesson #7: Alcohol levels the playing field. No matter what country you’re from, how you’re brought up, what you look like, etc. If you drink enough alcohol you will act like a drunken moron. With all the tourists from all over the world at Oktoberfest, this concept is hammered home. And it is oh-so-fun to watch.

    Oktoberfest 2013
    After finding our one friend who remained at the end of the day we gave up on getting another beer at Oktoberfest and bought some on the street for the trip home.

    Lesson #8: If you try and meet your friends in Oktoberfest and they are already drunk when they text you where they are…you will spend the next three hours trying to find them in the WRONG tent!!! And then come out to find only 2 people left of the group who haven’t gone home drunk and one is leaving to go to the hospital to check on her friend who left Oktoberfest on the drunkbus. Always meet your friends before entering the festival.

    Lesson #9: The festival outside of the beer tents seems just as fun, maybe more so because its less crowded and there’s plenty of food vendors and a ton of rides. Then you realize the only place you can buy beer is inside the beer tents. Definitely not as fun.

    Liter of beer at Oktoberfest
    Alex and I at Oktoberfest. Much happier after getting our first liter of the good stuff.

    Lesson #10: A liter of beer and a giant pretzel can totally change your attitude.

    The first day of Oktoberfest didn’t include many photos since it was just constant chaos and an attempt at getting our bearings on the whole thing. Hopefully the next few weeks I will get some more photos. But here are some photos from the impressive Oktoberfest parade we went to this morning. Apparently there were over 8000 participants in the parade the route was 7km. I can’t imagine walking that far in some of the shoes they were wearing and carrying the heavy instruments and flags!