Oktoberfest
Germany on September 24, 2008 at 2:47 pm
No pictures, on phone, of what I did today. Battery was low, no plugs on train last night, but this one does.
So here is a big thing I found in Rome. I reference it in the post below this one. So you need to go read that first or else you could throw off the space time continuum.
Go ahead and do that now, I'll wait.
Everything went pretty according to plan, if you look back I'm not making it up, I even wrote out what I planned.
I arrived at like 6am put my bag in a locker that could fit 3 dead Italian teens and caught the S-Bahn to Dachau.
Then I crammed onto the 726 bus that goes to the memorial site. There was a ton of kids on bus going to school so I'm being shoved around like at a concert.
Here's part of why it only was pretty to plan. I got off at wrong stop. We are in some industrial park and a screen on bus shows a map and my stops name. It's been doing this whole time for each stop.
My thoughts are, no way is this where camp is. I got off a few stops later and walk back to the one I passed on. It is not the one I want.
But I saw a sign that had an arrow and the name I needed.
I'm walking down a road towards an open field on outskirts of town that says, "ya I'd be a good spot to kill tens of thousands of people."
I walked the wrong way. I was close at bust stop, but all the signs that would indicate I was going wrong way were facing away from me or at my back.
Dachau was interesting, some stuff was tough. I had to take a good sit when I came to "Grave of thousands of unknown prisoners" after walking through a gas chamber and crematorium. In the words of a great McFly, "this shit is heavy."
It was a camp for political prisoners and labor, not an extermination camp. So I can't imagine visiting Auschwitz.
Did I mention this isn't on the outskirts of town, burger king is 30 seconds from parking lot and the prisoners worked around town. They have a film that says the towns people would give them bread or a sympathetic look sometimes.
A sympathetic look, sometimes.
Probably the only thing that made me want to laugh there.
That took up all morning.
Back in Munich I snagged a ticket to Vienna and looked for Oktoberfest again.
I asked two guys in the right clothes, but not drunk yet where it was.
"oh you just take the U-bahn to treaJskddjxddhdj"
-"Tdjaishdbd?"
"ya"
So I managed to repeat it to him properly but forgot so quick. I couldn't even find the metro it's like this long line of signs that lead to nowhere but lead you in circles.
So I took all the knowledge I had on it's location…
Follow the people, thank you ticket lady
It's opposite of where you were, thank you Scott
It's near the U-Bahn stop tgddgd, danka
Really I only found it because of a Nokia ad that had what I hoped and turned out to be roughly accurate map.
It's a huge fair and for all the people it's pretty quite because all the people are in the tents making noise. And the "tents" are well constructed buildings only considered temporary because they take them down now and then, but these could stand year long I'm sure.
I checked out 3 and on third I just asked a waitress if there was a spot I could squeeze in because most are reserved.
Table was me and three boring and bored looking Italians of all races. I tried to start up talk, but no go. So I down the largest beer I've ever seen, buy a drinking cap of my own, and walk out.
I only had one and the band was done playing anyway. Had I got sit with people not made of suck I would have big around. One is enough for the time I drank it in. I had to 2 hand it.
Would be good with a group or if you get sat with actual human beings. I guess next time I'll just have to convince some people that education is secondary to Oktoberfest.