Why Munich?

That's a legit question.  And to be honest, Munich wasn't anywhere on the wish list even for cities to visit.  But in early 2011 our annual Bolder Options marathon destination was announced and it was Berlin.  The race was on September 25th.  Well I had heard of Oktoberfest and thought I'd check dates to see if it would be possible to catch it on either side of the race and wouldn't you know, I was going to be there smack dab in the middle of it!  Well, being the aspiring professional drinker that I am, I wasn't about to let an opportunity to visit the drinking Mecca pass me by!  Some of my geography aficionado readers might point out that Berlin and Munich are nowhere near each other.  In fact they are 600km (372 miles) apart.  But never fear, my love of beer runs deep, and a mere 1 hour plane ride (or 6 hours on the autobahn as it were) wasn't going to keep me from the most epic beer festival in all of history!  So I promptly phoned my friend Chris and told him that he needed to come with me.  We booked flights, hotels and alerted our friend Thatz in Munich that the Dynamic Drinking Duo was on their way.

Some may question my judgement in booking Oktoberfest prior to my marathon in Berlin.  Fair point.  But aside from my comedic reasoning that I was using Oktoberfest to "carb up", there was another reason.  I had registered to run the Twin Cities Marathon the weekend after Berlin and I wasn't about to run a marathon, party for a week and then run another.  I wanted to have a rest week in between.

We arrived in Munich on September 16th.  We got settled and went out but kept it pretty low key as we were saving our strength for the marathon drinking session that is the first day of Oktoberfest.  It's an sight to behold.  14 tents that hold 10,000 people each with overflow seating outside each tent for at least another 2,000.  6 million visitors come to Oktoberfest over the course of 17 days.  7 million liters of beer are served.  On the first day there is a parade with horse drawn carriages to bring in the first kegs of beer.  At noon, the first keg is ceremoniously tapped and a canon is fired signaling the start of the festival.

Some people arrive at 6am to wait for a table.  Chris, Thatz and I showed up right at noon and met up with some of his coworkers.  The first person we were introduced to was Gerriann, and that's where this little adventure of mine really begins.  I immediately asked Thatz if he was interested in her because it's not my style to come as a visitor and cock block my friends on their home turf.  He said I had the all clear and at that moment my trip changed. We had a great time hanging out during Oktoberfest that day.  Later on in the night we ran off to explore the Wiesn together.  They have carnival games and rides and we tried to hit up as many as we could.

I had such a good time I asked her out on a date for Monday.  We wound up doing a happy hour with a few other people and this time I asked her if she wanted to go to Prague with me in the morning as I was going to stop there on my way to Berlin.  She said "absolutely" and we went to Prague on Tuesday!  On Wednesday she had to return to Munich and I had to be on my way to Berlin so we said our goodbyes not knowing when we were going to see each other again, if ever.  She sent me an email on the ride home saying that we needed to meet up again soon.  I invited her to Berlin but she wasn't able to make it but suggested I come down to Munich for the last 3 days of my trip.  It took me all of about 5 minutes to book a flight back to Munich.  I bailed on the marathon (partly because I sprained my ankle at Oktoberfest) and went back to hang out with Gerri.

So in a nutshell that's why Munich.  I met a girl, fell in love, yada yada yada, and now I live in Munich.  It's been amazing so far.  I've been here a little over 4 weeks and I'm really happy I wound up in such a cool city.  My maternal grandfather was 100% German which makes me 25% German.  There are definitely some cultural differences that I'm getting used to but all in all I feel pretty comfortable.  And I'm super pumped to be in the center of Europe and have the opportunity to travel.  Next weekend Gerri and I are off to explore Paris along with French wines and cheese.  I'll post some interesting stuff on that when we return.  Ciao!