Handschriftensachverständigungsvereinsvorsitzendenversammlungstagungsraum

In hindsight, I probably didn’t give a realistic account of what could be considered the greatest weekend of my life (also known as Oktoberfest). It was truly amazing – the food, the beer, the scummy drunken Aussies. I wish I could

Not knowing much about this ‘Germany’ fellow other than they are the world’s leading exporters of Bavarian beer, efficiency, and Jews, I decided to do a little research. I was pleased with what I found:

World War I

Also known as the Great Music Wars. Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the Kaiser Chiefs of Germany had an ongoing battle for world chart supremacy, decades of violence had gone on between the two rivals, so Franz Ferdinand released a single called “Take me out” which was an offer of peace, asking the Kaiser Chiefs to go out for a nice Bratwurst and a pint of beer with them and talk things over.

Unfortunately the Kaiser Chefs saw this single as a taunt on their military capability and athletic prowess and this ended in the unfortunate assassination of Franz Ferdinand. This resulted in the Great Music Wars of 1914 – 1918 and the defeat of the Kaiser Chiefs.

Germany was so taken with grief at the death of their leaders they called for Franz Ferdinand to have to sit in a small isolated room listening to non-stop playback of Kaiser Chief songs. After 3 days and 4 hours later Franz Ferdinand was found dead with his hands over his ears.
(Wikipedia, 2010)

On arriving to Germany, my fellow well-travelled passengers gave me various pieces of advice. One told me not to - under any occasion, even in solitary - do the nazi salute. (“What, this?” I asked inquisitively, lifting my arms up…before very suddenly being tackled to the ground) Another told me not to mention showers or yellow stars and I’d be fine.

Considering Germany a) boarders Turkey b) has towns named ‘Hamburg” and 'Frankfurt' c) is full of fat people, you could make some serious assumptions about the calibre and importance of food in Germany. And oh my cowboy boots, are those assumptions correct. Over the three blissful days of booze-filled fun, I indulged in sauerkraut, pork knuckles, huge pretzels, gingerbread, beigels, sandwiches, paninis, crepes, many a bratwurst (sausage), pimmels (chips), and probably a lot of other stuff that’s really bad for me but I can’t remember because I was distracted*.

The beer was also brewed to an exquisite standard. Of the 6 490 600 litres of beer which is consumed at Oktoberfest, I believe I consumed at least 12L of it. I can’t be too sure, but I reckon I tried Lowenbrau, Hoffbrau, the Bavarian wheat beer with a monk on the front, a Lowenbrau ‘radler’ (which is German for ‘shandy’, which is in turn slang for ‘pissweak’), Paulaner and Augustiner, while visiting about 6 of the 14 tents. Most of them had pretty cool traditional Bavarian decorations and entertainment all day long, and to keep you in form stopped every ten minutes or so to make everyone toast. The Oktoberfest toast is sung and goes “Ein Prosit, ein prosit’, then a long word which I could never pronounce so I just kind of hummed and faked it, and then you took a swig of your 1L stein. Of course, if you were playing drinking games on top of that your stein would empty even quicker, so you can see how it’s a vicious cycle. Yeah the steins are 1L each, they’re such a challenge. Everyone had stein-related bruises on their hands from holding the steins up to their mouths all day. I can hardly imagine what the poor beer wenches go through. But they get 20 000 Euros worth of tips for the two weeks, so it would be worth it. That’s incentive enough to learn German solely for that purpose. I’M KEEN.

So other than that, I haven’t been up to much. As soon as I got back I got into jobsearching (which for the record is quite difficult when you don’t have internet access or a printer) and have about 7 job possibilities so I’m not too worried at the moment. Poor, but not worried. In fact I was at a job interview on Friday, and I found the King’s College orientation day in a series of tunnels nearby. Tunnels. Open day. King’s College. Amazing. Oh yeah so if you find yourself signed up for King’s College Gynaecology Society, I will be in the opposite side of the earth giggling into a cupped hand and admiring my own hilarity.

So I decided to detox after Oktoberfest as I felt royally sheizenhousen after putting my body through that ordeal, however it hasn’t really worked out considering I’ve been out drinking for the past four nights. I’m going to take a break this week though and preserve my liver for next weekend which happens to be my birthday weekend! Oh how lovely! Yet simultaneously depressing, as nobody will know where to send their birthday packages they have for me**. I plan a bit of a bender which may or may not include drinking by the Camden canal, club NME at Koko’s, Barfly, Proud, happy hour at the cocktail bar, dancing on tables somewhere, NRL grand final at 7am Sunday, and the infamous once-in-a-lifetime journey to The Church. Come if you can!

*distracted being synonymous with ‘very drunk’

** Flat 56 Crowndale Court Camden NW1 1TY would be an option.