REJOICE!!!! FOR THEY HAVE TURNED THE HEAT ON!!!!!!!! yeah!!! so at the katuase (where we all live) they don’t turn the heat on until october so i’ve pretty much been in a constant state of coldness for the last couple weeks but i just sat down at my desk and realized that the heater on the wall was actually giving off heat rather than sitting there like a cold stone. YEAH!!!!! so yeah, right now i’m pretty much procrastinating because i have a lot of homework and haven’t done ANY of it yet this weekend because i was in munich and vienna the past couple days.
speaking of which, what a weekend…so friday morning we (me, patty, marissa, anthony, chris, jacob, michael – notice there were actually MORE GUYS THAN GIRLS for once!) drove to munich – about a 4 hour drive i think. we rented a minivan so the whole trip marissa and i were in the back corners with everybody’s stuff and sleeping bags. crowded but very comfy for a road trip. the drive was actually pretty fun because we drove through the alps which, oh my gosh, are so amazingly beautiful!!!!!!!! seriously – WOW anyway, there were some austrian cd’s in the car so we got to listen to some high-quality german music. no seriously, it was actually alright :o)
once we got to munich we walked all over the city which was very beautiful. Chris had been there before so he served as our tour guide which was kinda cool. he took us to some of the main churches and squares and then we climbed up one of the church’s bell towers and were able to see EVERYTHING. all of munich, the alps in the distance, and – oktoberfest of course. before heading to oktoberfest we actually went through a cool park and checked out a beer garden. a beer garden is this intersting concept of tons of picnic tables were people all go and get these huge stines of beer along with a big pretzel or sausage or some other completely unhealthy form of food.
we watched the sunset from this old marble gazebo type thing on top of a hill in the park and then proceeded back to the car, kicking the soccer ball between us. (*soccer ball side-note* —> so i’ve decided the soccer ball is like chris’s baby; he never goes anywhere without it! all through munich we were kicking in around; down streets, through crowds, pretty intense stuff. it actually turned out to be a good way to meet people because of course the ball gets out of control sometimes so some random person has to kick it back to us. it was great to see these nicely dressed men kicking our ball back. anyway, i seemed to be a ball target and got nailed at least three times, mostly by jacob. end side-note)
then we made our way to oktoberfest. we stopped to get directions from this couple that had obviously been there but they turned out to not be much help because they both pointed opposite ways… anyway, we got there eventually and wow – what a manifestation of human stupidity. i’ve never seen so many incredibly drunk people acting so disgusting. they had these huge “beer tents” packed with people drinking, smoking (many different things) and doing God knows what else. once we got there we split up because it was impossible to stay together in such a large crowd so i was with marissa and we ended up having a pretty good time despite the uh, atmosphere. we didn’t even try to get into the tents, instead we walked around dancing to the music, “talking” of the drunk people, riding the ferris wheel, eating peanuts, looking for hot chocolate, and avoiding drunken kisses. this one group of italian men were especially persistent but we successfully brushed them off. one of them had won this plastic necklace at one of the carnival games and he gave it to me. how charming huh? they tried to teach us this drinking song in italian too but we both forgot it already.
after our group finally rejoined we went back to the van and were thinking about trying to find someplace to sleep but a certain anonymous member of the pack had managed to get completely sick (not on purpose, just to clarify). we decided continual puking wouldn’t be good for a car ride so the girls and one guy slept in the van while the rest of the guys slept in a park a ways away from oktoberfest. it was actually surprisingly comfy and i slept great! the only problem with sleeping in a car is the lack of bathrooms.
the next morning we headed to a public bathroom in the underground to get cleaned up best we could before driving to vienna. it was packed with hung over oktoberfest goers. we found the morning after party spot! it’s really pretty disgusting, this huge crowd of people who just go to oktoberfest, get drunk, puke and act like a complete moron all night, and then go back the next day and repeat it all, over and over. i consider the whole experience very good motivation to never get drunk like that. (so dad, if you’re reading this, you can rest easy )
so anyway, then we drove to vienna which was slightly gross because our anonymous member was still pretty sick, but we made it just in time to get to mass at the cathedral with cardinal schinborn and meet up with the rest of ave. the mass was completely in german so i didn’t understand much and there weren’t any seats so i had to stand for the whole thing but it was still really beautiful. afterwards we all went out to dinner on ave, which is always nice, and then had some free time walking the streets before heading home. vienna is a great night city! tons of people and stuff going on!
*kinda creepy thing that happened* —> so kristen, mary clare, and myself were walking back to our main group and as we’re walking this older, well dressed man ahead of us turns, looks right at us, says (in really smooth english) “nice to see you again ladies” and walks the other way. WIERD. never seen him before. before leaving, michael managed to completely scare me. i’m walking along and he comes up behind and totally grabs me and starts taking my purse. yeah i pretty much COMPLETELY fell for it and freaked out. gosh. yeah so if you actually read all that, that was my weekend! onto homework or, rather, finding other ways to procrastinate…