Oktoberfest Munich 2009

As an observer at this year’s Oktoberfest in Munich, I was able to be a sober onlooker at the events of the world famous Oktoberfest.

Our group consisted of four of Todd’s teammates, and two of their girlfriends. We decided to travel to Munich by train, we were told to meet at the train station at 5:45am to catch the 6:00am trail to Munich. As we all found our seats on the train, one of Todd’s teammates proceeds to pull out 3 six packs of beer. Now, my initial thought was that the group would drink the beers before we entered the festival, which would most likely be around 11am. (Even still, I thought that 11am was way too early for drinking.)

At 6:02am Todd’s teammate begins to open the box of beers and starts to pass them around, one for each person. By 6:04 just as the train begins to roll along the tracks, all 6-group members begin toasting and drinking. Thus was the beginning of our Oktober festivities.

While making our way to one of the “world famous” beer tents, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between children and adults. You have sugared rushed kids stumbling from one carnival booth to another in search for their next candy to win and devour. Then you have the overly intoxicated adults acting like children stumbling from one beer tent to another in search of their next beer to consume. The irony of it all is that whether you were an adult or child, come nightfall, the designated family member or friend would be forced to baby-sit.

Finally, the beer tents the loud, colorful, smoky, and overly crowded beer tents. I had no idea how we were going to find an open table for 7, considering there were people standing everywhere due to the lack of seat and open tables.

So, the guys devised a game plan:
The guys decided to use us girls as bait. Our job was to find the table with the most men, and then us girls would use our womanly charm to get them to ask us to join them at there table. Then eventually, we would have our guys squeeze in, leaving no chance for the other guys to continue flirting with us, thus resulting in them leaving, and us having a table.

Well, the first part of the plan seemed to work like a charm. Second part, not so much, the men could care less if we had boyfriends or if we were married, they immediately bought us drinks and came in close so there was no easy way out for us girls. We respectfully declined the drink, and said that we needed to use the restroom. After their playful objections to our departure, we finally made it to a table the guys snagged up. By this time, the guys were already 2 drinks in.

After a few hours of singing along with 4,000 other drunken tent mates and dancing on tabletops, and after consuming about 4 gallons of alcohol between the 6 people in our group, the night was officially over.

All in all, as and observer and not a participant in Oktoberfest, I’d have to say that it was TOO MUCH:
Too much drinking, singing, talking, laughing, eating, toasting, smoking, yelling, dancing, spending, touching, flirting, groping, kissing, cheering, stumbling, falling, slurring, peeing, playing, barfing, fighting, punching, and resulting in the police arresting.
But, I guess you can never have “too much” of a good thing. Great time! Even better memories… Check it off the list!

Old Naked.

So, When Todds Physiotherapist told him that he needed to go to the local spa to rehabilitate his hamstring, We both thought to ourselves, great, while Todd uses the pool to work out his injury, i can use the sauna. We thought this would be a perfect break from our often mundane routine.

As Todd and I are getting ready for a day at SpaVital, We could not stop talking about how great it's going to be, to be able to sit in a sauna, and steam room again.
Now, Since Todd is apart of the basketball team, and SpaVital is a sponsor of the team, Todd he gets a free membership to this spa. I however, needed to pay 14 Euros. (Yeah, I thought that was pretty steep too) but we payed the entrance fee, and proceeded to the locker rooms.

As we walked in, Todd and I notice that it is just one large room, full of lockers, No separate rooms for men and women. At first we thought this was strange, but since we We both already had our suits on, we didn't think much of it.

We locked our belongings into the locker, and proceeded to walked out of the locker room through the showers, and into the spa area.

As Todd and I walked out onto patio, I quickly notice something to the left of me rather orange with glowing gray hair and frighteningly droopy and moving at a snails pace. As my eyes frantically focused on the object I instantly become uncomfortable.

This glowing Gray haired wonder was actually a 68 year old women completely naked. That orange glow, well, that was just her over processed tan, the droopiness well that was due to her being hunched over her walker.

Just as eyes were finally registering with my brain what i was looking at, I notice another old object directly in front of me underneath a shower head. This time, the body parts were not as distinguishable as the previous radiant orange fox i had just seen. Let me just say, when "Mother Nature" and "Father Time" work as a team, they can be pretty harsh! This time, a man was showering in all his naked old man glory pointed right at me. At that instant, my brain went into overload and I began to frantically look for the only thing familiar to me... Todd.

As i looked to the right of me, I found Todd, still looking at the old lady that was to the left of me. Now, if you know Todd, you may know that he has terribly eyesight. So, Todd said to me kind of in the form of a question/statement, "Ash, look at the man right there, look a his man boobs." And, at that very moment it hit him, like a ton of bricks... that was NO man. That was an old lady... and she was naked. Todd quickly looked away, but everywhere he looked more nakedness.

Todd grabbed my hand and we instantly turned right back around through the showers and into the locker room. Both speechless, we didn't know what to say to one another, we just started laughing hysterically. So we walked back out to the foyer and asked the employee of the facility if it were okay if we wore our bathing suits. His answer was simply, "NO, but you can wear a towel around yourselves." So we thought okay, we would just give it another shot and suck it up. As long as we were covered up it would be fine, we could handle this, We are mature adults here!!!!!

So, Again, through the locker room and out the shower room doors, to the outside deck... another look around, and we again turned right back around got dressed and got the heck out of there.

So as Todd and I are driving back home we could not believe the situation we were just in. However, The greatest part about it, while driving home Todd turns and says to me, "So wait. How was i supposed to rehab my knee there? Did they really expect me to stretch and run in a pool of water that comes up to my mid thighs, completely butt naked... with my wiener all hanging out...? "

Wow! What a day!