Munich
2nd-5th October 2003
Well what a doddle, not.
The trip to the OCTOBERFEST in Munich took some sorting out but worth
every agonising minute spent on the phone and the internet, organising and re-organising.
The planning began at least 6-9 months before the trip, first of all
checking out who would be interested. Craigy
Baby was always going to be 50/50, and who could handle the short flight to
Munich airport (just give me wings Beardie), the Octoberfest ale (did I really
collapse? Yupmeister), and the fairy-tale castle walk (Lionel Blair - Richie)
etc. etc.
Despite asking for anyone who was interested to contact me
by a certain date there’s always going to be one, well several burra wollers
as it happens. 24 hours after the
deadline, and after the flight and hotels are booked, the burra wollers finally
confirm they’re on for it, and the group gladly expands from 6 to 10.
The same flight was available for all 10 of us, but there were no more
rooms at the same hotel, still there was always a boggen housen at the same
price!
I got my first bit of advice on the beer tents from a young
seasoned traveller, Yvonne, who lives in Germany, a mate of Zoë’s who said
that all you have to do is to sink a bockvurst, walk into a tent, find a seat
and order dinks. It’s easy
perhaps for a young, single, attractive wench, but for us?
If only it was that easy!!
The tents have to be pre-booked in the March of the year
you want to go. Easy, ……. not.
By the second day of March all tents are generally booked, as are the
hotels. You’ve got to act fast.
A list of tents is provided on the Munich tourist information site www.muenchen-tourist.de.
Which one? There are tents
for those with homosexual tendencies, ooaarrhh, and tents specialising in
particular types of food, music and for local rival football supporters, which I
was reliably informed, are best avoided if you want to live to see another day.
You need to approach the tent organisers directly, whichever you finally
decide upon. Most weren’t available on the net, so letters would have to be
sent. The biggest tent, the
Hofbraeu-Festzelt, appealed to me, and this one could be contacted quickly by
email. Despite several attempts
though, most replies came back saying ‘Dear
Sir and Madam, thank you for your reservation/intrrest. Sorry bat wie are boockt
on this day. best regards
HB-Festzelt.’
A reply eventually came through in the post from the beer tent confirming that we had finally got a reservation…………..in German, of course. Well, we needed a translator, and who better than Bickie (I’d be with you if me bladder would hold up), fluent in thousands of languages since birth; well you had to be living in Cross Heath. It appeared that we had somehow got a reservation on a balcony complete with food vouchers, which had to be redeemed on the day, or otherwise lost. A half of chicken and a couple of steins including entry at around £15, which was to be paid for up front, by bankers draft, oh pooh, another hurdle.
Translation between the camps made up for the language
barriers with the germans. A typical reply from the burra wollers was
Guten Tag, Nein Sprechenzee Deutsch, Parlez vous Francais? Can you
ride a tandem? Ja mine Hoffmienster, Freitag Um wieviel Uhr? Auf wiedersehen
Johann. What hope did I have?
The flights were booked through BMI baby at a ridiculous low cost and all was fine and dandy until July when ‘there is a schedule change to your flight with bmibaby. The new flight details are shown below. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but most changes result from operational issues and are unavoidable’ They’d only gone and changed the flight dates by several days. After several desperate calls, the flights were rearranged to a day later than planned. Not too bad! This had repercussions, however, on the proposed itinery. A frantic call to JCmeister and eventually all was sorted. We would now spend the first full day at the beer tent and the second day on the walk; vice versa to the original proposals. Not to worry, at least the pre-arranged beer tent booking had not been totally jeopardised.
Hotels in the city centre are fully booked several months
in advance, due to the popularity of the Fest.
The hotel Ibis was the only one I could book which I did easily by phone.
They were very accommodating. No
problem once the number and dialling codes were worked out as they spoke ‘rate
fluent’ English, better than us Stokies.
No more rooms available though for the burra wollers but JCmeister
managed to book a boggenhousen a couple of tube stops away.
So, the flights, hotel and beer tent were booked.
We’d just got to sort the trains out when we arrived at the airport to
and from the hotel, and also the train to Fussen for a walk to Neuschwanstein,
the fairy tale castle nestled in the mountains.
Making advanced enquiries I was told that tickets were £40 for 10 of us
which I felt was too expensive. As
it happened this was £4 each, a cracking price for a 1½ hour journey each way.
They may not have won the war but the trains are excellent value.
Finally, Thursday 2nd October had arrived.
Lederhosens packed and we were off. It was throwing it down; raining datsun cogs in fact as described by Scottmeister. Dave ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ arranged the luxury-not 4 seater bus. We would all surely be able to sue the driver for the effects of passive smoking in years to come. But, at least he was reliable and on time, unlike Tim and Sean meisters who, as always, arrived late at the airport.
As usual the flight was delayed. Regular updates were passed to us by JCmeister who spent most of the time scrutinising the arrival time screen, not knowing if he was commin or goin. Only a half hour delay though and we were finally up in the air. Memories of the Munich air disaster were recalled and its possible it might have got mentioned to JCmeister once or twice to try and settle his nerves. Just before we took off, the obligatory demonstration by the stewardess, on ‘how to jump out of the plane if it was going to crash’, began and a disturbance flared up close to the burra-wollers. No, not JCmeister, but a group of rowdy nerds nearby who weren’t listening to her demo.
We had an attractive looking stewardess in a tight fitting
red shirt, at our end of the plane, well we would wouldn’t we.
Sadly though, her armpits reeked with b.o. which Spikemeister remarked
upon on each occasion she reached over him.
Don’t know how he could smell anything though; sitting so close to the
planes bog en housen.
Safely arriving at Munich airport, Spikemeister, graciously took over the purchasing of the train tickets. Using techniques he had acquired over the years, wheeling and dealing, he completely mesmerised the poor girl behind the ticket desk and somehow emerged with a full complement of tickets for everyone. Unfortunately, a line of frustrated germans, who had been patiently waiting in the queue, were left fuming and cursing as the shutters dropped at the ticket desk for the lunch break. Don’t mention ze var.
Separating on the tube, we arranged to meet up later at the
Ibis that afternoon to have a short ‘Fhart’ to suss out the fest for the
following day. The 2 hotels were
streets apart, literally. The Ibis
was clean, but bijou, whereas the bogenhousen had swimming pools, buffets
available at all times which included endless supplies of sausages, that we
could only dream about in our bijou hotel.
We waited quietly and patiently in the bar waiting for the
CW’s and DC to rejoin us, sampling our first taste of german lager.
Keith Jackomeister insisted on using a disabled toilet instead of the
main one near the bar. He’d only had one stein by this point! Was the toilet disabled because it didn’t have any
lights? Was Keith Jackomeister
after an early fhart?
The first taste of german lager was very impressive, so
much so that a german slag gave us an earful and asked us to be quiet in a
‘Chell Heath/Bentilee cum German’ sort of way.
The burra wollers and D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ finally arrived to
meet us, having already snacked on the way.
D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ and JCmeister had bought the last 2 slices
of pizza from a café, which were meant for Forest Gump who was next in line,
and he was none too pleased.
The walk to the beer festival site was probably only a
couple of miles or so. Amazing how
in that short time we could separate into two groups and lose each other.
Dragging Keith Jackomeister out of the peep shows didn’t help much.
Miraculously we met up again inside one of the many beer tents, and
regrouped. The tents were massive
and absolutely packed with no apparent seating available.
We eventually squeezed into a a beer garden.
Keith Jackomeister immediately made an impression on the gents, being
propositioned by at least 3 nice men. Seanmeister
got the steins in and the singing began. ‘Whale
meat again and oooh oooh baby, oooh
arrrh.’
Not feeling too well I excused myself from the table and
went a wandering. After feigning my
collapse in front of 2 young german lassies, blond, 18 years old, bikini-clad
(I’m dreaming again), and receiving treatment by the paramedics for extremely
low blood pressure, I returned unsteadily back to the tables where the ale had
began to pile up through my lack of normal consumption.
It was time to leave. This
was only supposed to be a taster of things to come tomorrow anyway.
Scottmeister though, had by this time become entangled with a group of
wenches on another table, (what a surprise) when a fracas began after some
german wolla nicked his stein. Scottmeister
immediately de-capitated him and had to be rescued by the bouncers.
The stagger back to the station was entertaining.
Keith Jackomeister was in the mood for pole dancing, although the bus
stop chosen did nothing for him, or us, except break his thumb; and give us
something to laugh about of course. Food
at last, and my life back on track, I demolished a quick sandwich followed by a
bratwurst or two. Still catching up
on food, I lost the rest of he gang, who unknowingly to me had climbed the
stairway to heaven, to reach ‘Burger King’, where Forest Gump re emerged.
Was he after revenge?
Seemingly, I had mislaid my phone, so I staggered back to the hotel accepting that I couldn’t do anything about it until light of day on Friday. First task tomorrow, to retrace my steps and find it.
Friday
At last, Hoffbrau beer tent day, after finding my mobile of course.
First stop, the lost property office at the train station.
Then the hot dog stand, then the sandwich shop, then, well we gave up.
And, well would you believe it, Scottmeister had picked up my phone the
previous night, bless him.
We set off from the hotel, aware that time was short to
meet up with the burra wollers and D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’, as agreed at
10.30, managing to pick up a gallon or two of water up on the way to restock our
fluid levels. None of us were now
looking forward to a day of drinking; the last thing any of us now wanted after
the tank full necked the previous night. The
crowds swelled as we got closer to the site, passing a hotel with a board
outside upon which was written the following welcome message; ‘Welcome to our
hotel, but please don’t piss on the carpet.’ A carnival atmosphere welcomed us with a delivery of
beer arriving outside our tent as we arrived, pulled by immaculately groomed
shire horses.
The ‘tent’, similar to a giant aeroplane hanger, was
heaving already as we slipped inside to find our spot.
A corner table on the balcony next to the steps had been reserved for us
ooooeer, it didn’t look good. I
nipped off to get the drink vouchers from a little office behind the bandstand
whilst the rest of the group rearranged a couple of tables to give us more room.
With our vouchers in hand, the first steins were ordered and promptly
delivered to the table by our voluptuous waitress Nicole.
As the atmosphere improved the activity on the stairs next to us grew and
our position didn’t appear quite so bad after all.
Messages began to appear on the mobiles asking what the cleavages were
like at our end of the table? We’d
got ‘pole’ position. Spikemeister,
being a little frustrated at the opposite end of the table, befriended a young
girl, and I mean young, around 6ish I would guess.
He pretended to show her a few hand games, or so he told us!
The chickens were hugemongous, and well worth waiting for.
I had to wait the longest mind, and after the previous days ‘lack of
food’ scare as well. The
table was slow to be cleared, so Spikemeister took on the job of stacking and
clearing the plates away. Pam would
not have believed her eyes.
A wandering Neanderthal targeted D ‘Ceen my
glassesmeister’ asking him for a swig of his beer.
It must have been the glow of his generous nature and outwardly kind and
charitable personality shining through. He
didn’t get any! D ‘Ceen my
glassesmeister’ promptly proposed Prague for next years jaunt to avoid the
prospect of ever meeting Neanderthal man again. Before he got any response though, would you believe it, he
became targeted a second time, this time by Matteus whose soft lips were
puckered in an expectant manner waiting to accept whatever may be offered in his
direction. He didn’t get anywhere
either!
Ein prosit and other Bavarian type songs ripped through the
air as the oompah band began to let rip. The
trips to the boggenhousen became more frequent, and the queues became longer.
Some trips became more frequent for some, but they’ll remain nameless (JC/DC).
Now we’ve only got Scottmeister’s word on this, but he is adamant
that he spotted Richmeister being propositioned by Bob the Builder in the
bogenhousen. Richmeister denies
this accusation of course. However,
Scottmeister would not tell fibs. What
the ‘butler’ saw was a strapping big bloke, named ‘Dennis’, who was
wearing a yellow hard hat, planting a smacker on Richmeister at the urinal.
Say no more.
And then…
there she was….... ‘She
was stunningly beautiful, long blond hair, blue eyes, traditional dress, a
figure to die for, an understanding boyfriend and a cleavage photographed by us
all many, many times. better than a
f’ing good breakfast’. Now who
was Spikemeister describing? Was it
Samina, Sabrina, or Sardinia. Whatever,
the race was on…..to name their first grand-daughter Sabrina.
Keith ‘I’m on for itmeister’ swapped places
with her at one point on the balcony but no-one bothered to look at him.
Scottie got his 2 cigars out to christen his grand daughter prematurely,
well he always is! but unfortunately it was a no smoking area.
The steps were becoming perilously more wet and dangerous as the
afternoon wore on. We laughed as
hundreds of drunken german slobs hit the slippery slope and broke their backs.
Were the steps wet from dripped ale or was it the dribbling from the mouths on
the balcony?
The squabbles continued, …’Oh yes it is Sabrina, oh no
it’s not, its Samina, oh no it’s not………
Who cares? The cameras
flashed and clicked like never before. Shares
in Kodak escalated 500%. Samina’s
young boyfriend, Matteu, couldn’t understand the interest and was glad only of
the seats cleared for them next to Scottmeister.
Scottmeister, however, had his eyes fixated on a very nice man until he
discovered he was Indian and lost interest.
Ale drank and it was time to be heading back to the hotel.
Seanmeister began to express his thanks to me for organising the trip and
became increasingly amorous; and aimed several sloppy kisses at me and hugged me
till I couldn’t breathe. A quick
stop for a burger gave me chance to get my breath back and settle my nerves.
Yet again the group had split into several groups.
Tim and Spikemeister had wandered off in one direction, Keith
Jackomeister in another and the rest of us returned back to the Italian
restaurant adjacent to our bijou hotel. Richmeister was knackered and retired to bed at around
9.20pm, dreaming of Dennis and his shiny, hard…………..hat.
We settled down in the Italian and pizzas were ordered.
Still full from the earlier burgers, we asked for them to be boxed up.
Surprisingly, D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ got a little narked with the
waiter for some reason and said he was toss.
Spikemeister wandered in. Evidently,
Timmeister had returned back to his hotel for a midnight swim; and Keith Jackomeister had returned to the Ibis, promptly fell asleep in
his room and couldn’t be woken up by Spikemeister. It later emerged that Keith Jackomeister had tried another dry
run in a sex shop on the way back and despite his attempts, he never got to
‘Wank’ (a small village in Germany, incidently, near Fussen).
Breakfast began as previous with the buffet of various hams, breads and cheeses. A group of Cossacks were popping tops off lager bottles to sober themselves up. The burra wollers were tucking into full german breakfasts at their posh hotel. JCmeister had taken a liking to the sausages and had increased his intake by an extra length each day!
Feeling a little jaded but eager to make the walk to the
castles we geared up and set off to the station. Richmeister for some reason thought we were auditioning for
come dancing and had slipped on his tank top and ballroom shoes.
Fear struck us as we realised that D ‘Ceen my glassesmeisters’
glasses had gone astray at the Italian last night.
How would we be able to read any menus?
Surely that mad waiter, who D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ had described
as ‘toss’, hadn’t flattened them into someone’s pizza take-out?
That reminded us, where were the pizzas that we were going to finish off
today? Had D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ eaten them before breakfast?
Apprehensively, we jumped aboard the train which was
sitting on a different platform to the one shown on the board, and hoped…
Fussen was around 1½ hours away, so plenty of time for a nap.
The walk to the castles was only around 4-5 miles.
Long enough for Richmeister to break his shoes in with a cha-cha-cha and
a waltz. So impressed was
Scottmeister that he said he was going to buy some new boots for next years trip
and get Richmeister to break them in for him.
As the castles came into view, a bomber circled over to the
hum of the Dambuster’s tune. Signs
in the adjacent wooded areas warned of Eagles landing, so JCmeister held on till
a public convenience became available because he’d heard that Eagles can spot
a 3mm branch from a mile away. A
steep approach up to the castle and time enough for a look at the waterfall and
a bridge too far. On the bridge,
Scottmeister came over queer again. It
was gorgeous, nicer than nice. The bridge that is !!
In the castle, Neuschwanstein, D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’
used his technical skills to aim at a wasp in the urinal. Of course, we all thought he was taking the piss.
The tour was well worth waiting for and finally a chance to shop for
loved ones. Well, Spikemeister must
have hundreds of them. Timmeister had to wait at least half an hour for him to
appear with the key for the rucksacks, which had been deposited in the lockers
before entering the castle.
On the return walk back to the village Timmeister
side-stepped a female cyclist to avoid getting mowed down, and was heard to
shout out ‘Danker’, or at least that’s what we thought he said.
The football results began to appear on D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’
‘s mobile. Stoke had beaten
Forest 2-1. D ‘Ceen my
glassesmeister’’s Rangers had lost 1-0 to Celtic.
Wolves had beaten Man City 1-0, but enough said about that.
Keegan had been given the boot by Man City and Sean began humming that
catchy little number again
oooh ooooh baby, oooh, aaah.
It didn’t take long to find a delightful restaurant in Fussen. In the style of a banqueting hall, but complemented with a hairy transsexual. Paper bibs were handed out by the friendly waitress. She must have been tipped off about our eating habits. We struggled to read the menus without D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ ‘s glasses, which by now were probably lost forever. So we ordered the meals by instinct. The meals were unusual to say the least. We’d agreed to have a snack only and wait till we were back in Munich to dine out. Soon forgotten, we ordered main courses and a round of ale! Spikemeister, was so thirsty he ordered himself a further stein of extra dark beer. Scottmeister selected the Norwegian fish (Cod and chips) and JCmeister ordered the hand reared Fussen chicken breast. Over the 3 to 4 days break we reckon he’d eaten at least one, maybe 2 whole chickens. Unfortunately, they’d put a dollop of mayonnaise on his plate which JCmeister doesn’t like. So he scooped it up and flicked it over Seanmeister.
The train journey back saw Spikemeister nodding off.
It must have been that extra dark dandelion and burdock he’d necked.
We summoned up a few ounces of energy to have a quick look
around Munich when we got back and sauntered down the main street, past the
glockenspiel and into a bar. Keith
‘I’m on for itmeister’ sensed a little hostility in the room, so we
left before a war began. Burger
King lured us in next door to order a snack, as it does.
Pondering the menu a german youth took a tumble and I was asked what I
was going to do about it! What was
all that about !! ?? Is this how
wars start?
The burra wollers and D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’
returned to their hotel, or had D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ gone to a
different one. Surely, it
couldn’t be the same hotel, because they’d got a buffet available, with
platefuls of sausages? Apparently
it was the same one, because the Fanta machine was still there which JCmeister
had previously swore at because it wouldn’t work.
D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ had explained to him that you have to
press a button on it and not a piece of card that had been stuck on the machine.
If only either of them could have worked out the air-con in their room
then they wouldn’t have had to sleep naked every night!! Or would they??
It was raining datsun cogs again, but this was our only
chance of snapping the glockenspiel and checking out a church service. Back
at the hotel we started packing. Like
a scene from Fawlty Towers, Keith Jackomeister began flapping and remonstrating
when he thought he’d lost his passport. Not
only would he not get home, but he’d also got a holiday booked in Egypt the
following week. Only in the civic
centre had such similar flapping scenes been seen before.
It was in his pocket!!
A simple tube trip back to the airport proved a little
difficult, as we realised that we’d caught the correct ‘S1’ train, but
were travelling in the wrong direction. Lo
and behold, we met up with the burra wollers on a platform.
D ‘Ceen my glassesmeister’ was sporting a pair of pepperoni flavoured
reading glasses that had been found in a pizza box.
The delivery had only been made in a limousine, courtesy of the
burra wollers posh hotel. What
service is that?
JCmeister looked washed out, having had no sleep since
he’d arrived in Munich. Each
night he’d screwed up the ‘Kleenex extra’ toilet paper and filled his ears
in an attempt to try and drown out the snoring from someone in the adjacent bed.
No not Keith ‘I’m on for itmeister’ this time.
What made it worse was that the toilet paper was as rough as a bear’s
arse, not what you’d expect in a posh boggenhousen.
At least it hadn’t been used.
No need to rush, as a 2 hour delay was announced at the
airport. As we waited it became
apparent why Scottmeister’s case had been so light on the outward flight.
It was filled with bubble wrap; enough to wrap every bottle in the duty
free shop in fact, and Phil’s ciggees.
Finally on the aeroplane and seated with extra leg room, it
dawned on Keith Jackomeister that he’d been propositioned on 3 separate
occasions, sadly though by blokes on each occasion. To take his mind off it he replaced the emergency door sign
back on the door which had fallen off and smiled at JCmeister.
All’s well that ends well then, except for one final
problem…… Scottmeister had parked his car outside Beardies house over the
weekend but hadn’t told him. His
neighbours had called the Police in. Ooooops