Dang! What a weekend! I love the fact that a weekend trip here means leaving the country! A simple three hour flight took me to GERMANY! It was so much fun seeing and experiencing yet another culture! And Munich is a beautiful city! It is so clean and everyone takes so much pride in their wonderful gothic buildings and churches! I loved it! We arrived in Munich on Friday afternoon. After checking into the hotel, me, Mark, Ryan and Ryan's older brother Greg and I jumped on the metro and headed into town to try and meet Chad at Oktoberfest. Instead of taking the metro all the way to the park where Oktoberfest was being held, we got off a few stops early and walked out this amazing Gothic building with a REAL coo-coo clock! How stinking cool! We wondered around for a while, just in awe of the architecture and everything else that Munich offered!
But we finally continued on our way to Oktoberfest. I really didn't know much about it going there, just thought it would be a fun experience, and holy cow it totally was!!! It was like a huge fair, carnival rides, delicious food, I mean I felt like it was the Coconino County Fair on like steroids, except for the fact that there were huge beer tents everywhere. It was insane! There were so many people walking around, and lets be honest, most of them were pretty gone.... so trying to meet up with Chad was a struggle. But we finally found him! It was so good seeing him again, someone I actually knew. It was a little comfort of home. But we were having troubles getting in to the tent so we literally had to sneak in. Once inside we got picked up by a waitress who sat us at a table. Inside the tent was absolutely insane! Oh my goodness! Literally thousands of people standing on the tables, wearing the traditional German attire (I wanted one of those dresses so bad!), singing drinking songs and sloshing beer around! I was totally out of my element, but it was interesting to see. We decided to order a round of beer and they don't take beer lightly there in Germany. The waitress came back with a stein, like a whole L
ITER, of beer! It was crazy. But it was so much fun to experience such an event and see people from all over the world gathered in one place. We were sitting next to some Sweds, Aussies, and apparently Frakonians, and we all had a great time talking and hearing stories from back home. It was a fun night!
The next day we decided to explore the city a little bit. Munich is such a cool city! I can't get over how beautiful the architecture is! So detailed and intricate. Absolutely beautiful! We saw the real coo-coco clock and stumbled across some amazing churches.
The first one had a beautiful and huge crucifix hanging from the cathedral ceiling that hung right above the alter. It was so powerful to see such a glorious building dedicated to worship such a glorious God. The art that was in there was so amazing. Scenes from the Jesus on the cross lined the outskirts of the church and it was so humbling. I mean being in a huge and beautiful church just mimics our God. What a huge, beautiful and glorious God He is. So amazing! The second church we saw was again beautiful, but completely different than the first one. From the ground all the way upto the ceiling it was carved and sculpted. Beautiful corinth columns stretched up either side of the church. Angels and saints and portrayals of Jesus were literally carved in the walls of the church. It was absolutely gorgeous! It blows me away that people fill such a beautiful place to worship such an awesome God. I just loved it!
We decided that before heading back to Oktoberfest for the night, we needed a true German meal. So we stopped at a little restaurant and I had the most delicious sausage and sauerkraut ever! Oh my goodness! So good! Then to top it off I had real apple strudel, the Germans know what's up! My stomach was completely satisfied!
After a solid meal we went back to Oktoberfest were we met up again with our Swedish friends, Rickard and Zoran. We drank a beer with them, well actually I had a lemonade beer, sounds gross, but it was delectable! Again we got to experience the craziness of Oktoberfest, and my gosh it was crazy! Everyone toasting each other, banging their glasses together and yelling PROST! It was so fun! Afterwards we decided to go out with the Swedish guys and just hang out and talk. It was so fun getting to know them and hearing all about Sweden.
It was definitely quiet the weekend! So much fun experiencing something SO outside of my element. But I met some awesome people and saw a beautiful city and went HOME to Athens... can it get much better than this... I submit that it cannot!
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