Munich 2012 - Day 1

Submitted bydkranker onWed, 10/03/2012 - 14:54

Got up early and took a cab to the Gard L'Est train station.  Since we couldn't get the night train the day before, we had to lose about half a day for travel, from Paris to Munich.  We boarded the train on time and got to see some nice country side coming in to Germany.  The first stop was at Mannaheim and we had assigned seats to this location.  We changed trains here and saw more people who were in traditional dress and going to Oktoberfest.  Several of them were Americans, but most spoke German.  They were a rowdy bunch and since we were just holding on to a railing in the dining car for the trip to Munich, we saw everyone come by who was ordering.  We finally got back to the area where some seats had opened up, we had to move a couple times as people go on and off, but made it into Munich by the afternoon.  We got a cab to our room, but he had some trouble finding it.  On the highways there doesn't appear to be any speed limit.  We walked around trying to find the motel office again, but it started to sprinkle so we went back to the room and called.  They gave us some maps and information, but finally decided to just get a cab to Theresienwiese (Oktoberfest) that they called for us.  It was raining heavily by this time and we walked around the grounds and tried to get into several of the houses, we finally just had to sneak in so we could get something to eat.  Got a couple sandwiches and a giant pretzel.  It was crazy, with people jumping on the tables, singing and drinking.  Got a cab back to the room, the driver was East European, and drove over 160km - 180km/hour at times on the highway (over 100 miles/hour).