Oktoberfest

Friday afternoon, twelve friends and I traveled to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest. The festival is HUGE and a fun way to celebrate German culture. I have never seen so many people excited about beer and pretzels. Here's a picture from when we entered the festival, pretty early in the morning before it had filled up.

Some other K students, who are studying abroad in Budapest, Hungary, had flown in earlier. They told us they were in the "International Tent" so we waited in line to get in. After a lot of shoving, pushing, and being yelled at in German, we finally made it in. We heard our names being screamed, and looked up to see our friends calling us from the 2nd floor of the tent. It was amazing to see one of my best friends, Claire, after having not seen her or any of my close K friends since I left Kalamazoo in the Spring. 

Reunited with ClaireBear

We managed to talk the very grumpy security guards, who did not seem to speak 

English, into letting us onto the top floor. Jen and I hung out with the K kids for a while and then met everyone else at smaller tents outside later.

View from the second floor of one of the largest Oktoberfest tents

Inside the tents, barmaids were running around carrying up to eight liters of beer at a time. Pretzels and German cookies were everywhere. Every few minutes I would hear the crowd start cheering and look over to see someone standing on a table gulping down a whole liter of beer.

Reunited with K friends!
From left to right: Frankie, Dana, Paige, Claire, Zach (who studies with them in Budapest but not at K), Me

Hanging out outside with my friends from back at Kalamazoo College and my new friends from Lewis & Clark College was my favorite part of Oktoberfest. 

Jen, Kathleen, and I went on the ferris wheel, which allowed us to see the entire festival from way, way up high. 

So overall, Oktoberfest was great. Darling parents, here's one for the Christmas card: