Awesome
I’m actually pretty pumped for this.
Sorry for studying abroad.
Amalfi Coast. No crazy stories, but it was gorgeous.
Oktoberfest (the rest)
We woke up around ten and got the KFC that we should have got yesterday. It was honestly the best KFC i have ever had in my life. We then caught the opening parade of Oktoberfest. It was awesome.
Fun Fact: This Oktoberfest was the 200th anniversary of the first Oktoberfest. There were no reports of beer being served at the first Oktoberfest, which was really just a wedding party for some prince.
We were walking past the parade to get to the festival when this guy called out to us from his float. “Hey, you, where are you from? Try our beer, it is good beer!”
It was good beer.
Eventually, we made our way to a tent.
.
We started drinking.
My memory of what happened after this point is a bit hazy. Somehow me and Paras got separated from the rest of the group. I remember he bought one of those gingerbread heart things that you’re supposed to wear around your neck, and I just took it from him and started eating it. I also had a sandwich of some sort that was really tasty.
We managed to make our way back to our hotel room, but we still didn’t know where the others were and we didn’t have a key. We “decided” to just pass out in the hallway. We woke up about two hours later to the rest of the group getting back. It turns out we had nothing to complain about.
The King of Oktoberfest (shown above) was taken in by the red cross and had to pay 70 euros before he was allowed to leave.
That was the end of day 2.
On Sunday we woke up and took a thirty min subway to the outside of Munich to visit Dachau (the first concentration camp). It is something I definitely recommend that everyone do if they visit Munich. We spent about three hours there, which was longer than we anticipated.
We didn’t have too much time left, so rather than try and do more sightseeing we just went back to Oktoberfest. An awesome German guy shared his table with us. He was a scuba diving instructor turned architect (cool right?) I think his name is spelled Niers. We drank and talked to him for a while.
Niers is the dude next to me.
We left to catch a 9 o’clock train back home. Luckily, I was able to pass out pretty easily. We got back to Santa Maria Novella (the Florence train station) at 6:30 am, just in time for class.
Munich (Day 1)
We had to skip Friday classes and bribe a bus driver for us all to make the 7am plane, but it was well worth it.
We arrived in Munich at around noon and after checking into the hotel, and eating a nice meal we did quick scan of the sights of the city. There were a ton of really pretty churches and such.
At around 7 we decide to stop by a biergarten (beer garden) for a couple of liters of beer. We started to get hungry and decide to leave. The gang turned down my idea for KFC and so we go to a legit restaurant. It is at this restaurant that we discover just how intoxicated Paras has become. Paras put his head on the table and is not nearly as responsive as we would like. After a huge German man came over to see if he was ok, I took him to the bathroom to vomit. After coming out of the restroom we find out that Saumya has thrown up as well (into a garbage can) and that was our queue to leave.
We sneak back into our hotel (we are putting 5 people into a 2 person room and we have to all have wristbands) at which point it as around 9 pm. Paras tells me to “take off my clothes, and put the red thing on me”. He is referring to the red blanket.
Day one in Germany ended at around 9:30. Oktoberfest hasn’t even started yet.
cinque terre (fo real)
We (me, paras, and a three other friends) arrived at the first city (or the last one depending on how you look at it), Monterosso al Mare, at around 11 am, and decided to hit up the beach right away.
I had left my swim trunks at Mallory’s beach house during Wildwood, so she had to mail them back to me. While changing into them for the first time this fell out…
Mallory is pretty cool.
The beach at Cinque Terre was rocky, but it was gorgeous regardless. We chilled there for like an hour and decided to start the long hike across the five lands.
(The Beach)
Our first attempt at hiking lasted about ten minutes before we saw an awesome semi-staircase thing that led to this secret beach area.
(the staircase)
This was way more fun the first beach. We climbed/ swam along the rocks and explored a cave. After about another hour of chillin we started our hike again.
The hike itself was pretty sweet. The paths had surprisingly little regard for safety, and I did enough stairs to make Pete proud, but it was all worth it for the views.
On our way home we had a two hour layover in Pisa. It was getting pretty late, but we had just enough time to hit up the leaning tower.
Can’t forget the Haze Love.
Awesome trip.
It’s better than serving in heaven
I got a camera.
In order to get to ultimate practices in Florence you have to walk down the sketchiest alleyway imaginable.
And just in case you aren’t sufficiently scared; at the end of the alleyway…
(I didn’t need the spray paint to tell me where this led.)
Cinque Terre post coming soon.
