We showed up Saturday evening to Ingo and Angela’s house which is in the suburbs of Munich. We walked into a housewarming/ birthday party so there were a lot of people milling around. As is my nature I just jumped in and started meeting people! It helps that Ingo is a fanatic about everybody wearing name tags so it was especially easy not to forget names.

Matt and me with Ingo

Almost everybody at the party spoke a bit of English and one of Ingo’s friends, Leighton, is British so that made it easier. Ingo was also hosting another surfer, Jackie, from Boston who was new to the mix as well. After a couple of beers we weren’t feeling shy and we were dancing and singing. Ingo passed out Oktoberfest songbooks and had them playing over the entertainment system. I don’t speak any German so the locals thought it was pretty funny when I tried belting out the words in an American accent. They were all very helpful and amused that we were so willing to try to learn the songs anyway.

The party lasted into the early morning but we didn’t get to sleep-in too long the next day because the film crew from the German telelvision station was due at noon and there were a lot of people queued for shower time!

A couple days before we arrived in Munich Ingo had written me an e-mail asking if it was okay if the news station did a story on us couchsurfing with him. Apparently Alaskans coming to Oktoberfest isn’t as common as we would imagine. Of course we agreed, I mean, it’s a good story at least! So bright and early Sunday afternoon the television people arrived to do their piece on Couchsurfing.com.

It was fun getting interviewed and setting up the scenes. They had us put our backpacks on and walk up to Ingo’s house as if we had just arrived. Then they shot video of us walking into the bedroom and settling in. I was surprised that they used my interview footage because I kept looking at the camera! Apparently there’s a lot I need to learn before making a career in Hollywood.

Having a beer with the tv crew in Munich

The best part about getting interviewed for German Television is that the crew was able to get us into the Lowenbraur beer tent and get us a table, which is unheard of opening weekend! We didn’t even show up to Oktoberfest until 3pm and the tents had been closed for hours.

Sitting in the tent is unlike anything I have ever experienced! You can hardly call them tents. They are more like airplane hangars and there are thousand of people in each one! The barmaids are all burley and can carry about 100 pounds in beer through crowds. No hotties in dirndles here! Leighton was telling us how they make so much money in the two weeks of Oktoberfest a lot of them don’t work full-time the rest of the year.

We sat at our table for a few hours drinking and singing. I made it through three liters before I was really feeling it. In the U.S. vendors would be probably walking around selling hot dogs and french fries and other greasy food. At Oktoberfest everybody was eating radishes and pretzels. So different!

Ingo and his radish

After going through quite a few liters we decided to walk around the festival and see what the Germans get up to. Ingo took us to the devil’s wheel which is an ancient ride that has been around forever. It’s this wheel on the ground that spins and people get on it and they get it going pretty fast and the goal is to see how long you can stay on. It’s fun to watch people fly off left and right. Once it gets down to the last couple of people then the carnies start dropping a large weight from the ceiling to hit people off and if that doesn’t work then they use ropes to try to lasso people off the wheel. I even got to box a girl on the wheel, but mostly I just fell over. Matt still has a horrible case of rope burn that runs from this forehead down to his cheek. He’s lucky that it missed his eye!

After we spent a significant amount of time at the Devil’s Wheel we decided that we were ravenous! It was off to the half chickens for us. I must say that the food at Oktoberfest is amazing. They have these chickens on the rotisserie all day and they are ridiculously juicy and flavorful, especially after a night of liter beers and the Devil’s Wheel.

The beers are big at Oktoberfest!

While everybody else in our party was working on getting our chickens Matt and I were standing on the sidewalk watching people pass in variations of stumbling. A group of Italians was walking our direction and one of them was obviously wasted. He stumbled and fell at my feet and then grabbed my leg. I thought that he was just trying to pull himself up and I was about to try to help him when all of a sudden I felt this shooting pain in my leg. He was biting me! I gave out a yelp and Matt kicked him in the back making him fall over again. I was so stunned I wasn’t sure what had just happened. I turned to Matt and cried, “I think he bit me!” By this time the kids friends had run over and grabbed him and were trying to get him to walk away.  Matt started yelling and the kids and the least drunk of them were trying to apologize for their drunk friend.

Once it hit me that the kid had actually bit me I got super pissed! I walked over to where the kids friends were holding him up. “Who bit me, ” I yelled. “You bit me?” I slapped him across the cheek and then shook my finger in his face yelling, “No! You don’t bite people!” It felt like the equivalent of reprimanding a dog, which was probably his cognizant level at that point.

His friends were starting to yell at us when Ingo started walking over to resolve the situation. Once they saw a 6’8 Bavarian heading their way they grabbed their friend by his arms and starting high tailing it toward the exit.

The rest of our night passed without as much excitement and I had quite forgotten the whole incident by the next morning. It wasn’t until I was complaining about all the bruises on my legs from the Devil’s Wheel that Jackie pointed at my leg and said, “That’s not from the Devil’s Wheel! That’s where that guy bit you!” Sure enough there was a perfect bit mark in deep black and purple on my calf, which is still a dark bruise almost a week later so that tells you how hard he bit me!

The rest of our weekend was not nearly as exciting as dancing on tables and getting bit on by Italians. We did spend a bit of Monday walking around Oktoberfest then we headed into Munich to check out the city. Of course we had to stop for lunch at the Hofbräuhaus and buy tshirts. After all, we are tourists!

The first word that comes to mind is relief. Ahhh, the weight is off my shoulders to pack up all my crap and move it out of my house in Anchorage. Once again I get to count my blessings at what amazing friends I have. Matt and Marcus helped me move all my heavy furniture into our friend’s trailer and Matt drove it all the way to The Valley with me and helped me unload it all at my parents’ house. I’ve lost count of how many heavy mattresses we have wrangled together. As usual, I couldn’t have done it without Matt!

 I am a little sad to be moving out because the house is great and I really enjoyed living at Westchester. It’s the perfect location close to downtown, but such a safe area. I’m embarrassed to admit that the only time we locked our doors in the five months that we lived there was when Peter woke up to find our street saturated by cops looking for an escaped felon. And then we never locked them again after that.

So now that I am out in The Valley for the next couple weeks I get to focus on saving money, packing for Germany and figuring out what I am taking to the lower 48 with me. My skis are the only things I am sure that I am bringing. Some clothes too. But I think that’s all I need. What a relief not to have to worry about hauling furniture around the country!

I am seriously evaluating my financial situation and it looks grim, to say the least. I am so lucky that I will get the dividend this year, which is going to be around $3000! Woo hoo! Proud to be an Alaskan! On top of that I’ve saved $1,000 to take to Germany, which will probably be gone in the blink of an eye! Although I did hear a rumor that the dollar is strengthening against the Euro. I hope it keeps it up!

And now it is bedtime since I have the pleasure of waking up at 4:30am to get to work in Anchorage on time. We’ll see how long this chipper attitude lasts!