The great Oktoberfest...

Having finally arrived in Germany after a seven-hour train, I was pretty ready to start drinking. I even found a place to shower in Munich station called, strangely, McClean (which I naturally added to with a McDump and a McToss) because after all, I had no accommodation (finding a place during Oktoberfest is like trying to find good-looking women in Croydon; if you're lucky enough to find any, they cost way too much) So I headed off down the main strasse towards where I thought all the people in lederhosen were going. Only they weren't. After following a load of them for about half an hour I realised I'd been duped when they bundled into a taxi and shot away into the distance. Shit!
You would have thought that Germany's biggest festival (much better than the hugely disappointing World Cup last year) would be better signposted, but it took me a further thirty minutes figuring out what tube to take, only to be confronted with one of the biggest let-downs of my life.
Oktoberfest is, obviously, all about the beer. But what they don't tell you is that if you turn up any time later than the day before it begins, it is actually impossible to get one. 28 tents all full of Germans singing along drunkenly to accordion music is not exactly my ideal night out, especially when the beer costs an embarrasing 8 euro (admittedly for nearly two pints; but then who wants to down Lowenbrau?). Added with the cheesy and decrepit carnival rides that spattered the piss-and-sweat-soaked arena, Oktoberfest is basically Dartford Fair on a huge scale. With Germans. Would anyone like to envisage a worse possible evening?
So, after twenty minutes of enduring this hellish situation (I was half-expecting some Dartford pikey to come up and try to rob my hat) I found my way back to the tube and out into the real world again.
Except that Munich during Oktoberfest hasn't really got any whiff of reality in it at all. Imagine a city with more than a million people filling its streets, every one of them totally shitfaced, and you'd probably be underestimating a little. At about 11pm when the tents turned off their faux-tiffany lamps and stomping folk music, the centre of town looked like a comedically-dressed battlefield, thousands of men having lost their brutal war with sobriety and found solice in the tarmac on the roads. Sick and piss flowed like water around them (again, the allusion to Dartford after Zens isn't far off) and not one of the twenty or so people I asked even knew what a train was, let alone when the one to Venice was arriving:
- Venice...Ven...Oh yeah! Venice! You fucked man? I'm fucked as hell, steamed one Canadian before hitting the deck. Others struggled to open their mouths at all. Not so the Italians unfortunately, and those of us patiently waiting on the platform were treated to an hour-long rendition of 'Campiones del Mundo' (to the theme of 'Seven Nation Army' for those who haven't had the misfortune).
So I was getting the night train, having spent a grand total of six hours in Munich, and ever in Germany for that. No worries, I'd rather bend over in my own shit in a room with Gary Glitter than spend a night in one of those tents. Besides today's Friday night, and the women are Italian and aren't sporting an entire cow for evening-wear.
Thankfully I found a cool Canadian guy on the train (all the good guys are Canadian- they seem to have all the confidence and energy of the Yanks without the arrogance or the racism) so we chatted away, and even managed to get some sleep. Which, on a night train, is the equivalent of trying to sleep with someone spitting in your face every two seconds (and in Bulgaria this is invariably the truth).
Money saved for Venice, which cannae be a bad thing, vindicated on arrival this morning. The place is seriously beautiful. But unlike Prague where no-one actually lives in the nice bit, but are instead herded into tower blocks which would make Brockley blush, everyone actually lives here, in the cute little flats by the water, the islands separated by stunning canals. It's great, if you can find your way round anywhere. It's a tiny place in truth, but without a map, it would take you longer to cross this city than the entire circumference of the Moon.
But anyway less shit from me. Although earlier I got a great soundbite from an American (I really don't hate them, they just continue to amaze me!) when walking round some of Marco Polo's huge maps on the walls of the Palace here.
- Guy managed to sail round the world, can't even spell California right.
I wish, in my heart of hearts that he was joking but I seriously don't think so. Food for thought...