Blogtoberfest

I am beat. In every sense of the word imaginable. [Note: I started this on Sunday. I've slept for probably 38 of the previous 52 hours since, though, so now I feel extremely rested at 3:25a, snacking on PB&J's and facebook stalking]

Let's start from the beginning.

I got up early on Friday morning so I could pick up some things at Tesco before we departed for Munich. I thought purchasing 400kc worth of snacks was an economical decision, but I actually didn't eat anything all weekend, and then I left everything I didn't eat in the hotel room. I guess I temporarily forgot how terrible the food was here in the Republic because I did not take advantage of the myriad wursts and schnitzels and pretzels and countless other fantastic smelling foodstuffs on sale at Oktoberfest. Instead, I'm relegated back to shitty Prague cuisine, like this poor excuse for a homemade tuna salad sandwich I just ate.

Would it be the worst thing in the world for the dorm kitchen to have a toaster? I love toasted stuff.

So, Oktoberfest.

On Friday morning, we tramvaj'd out to the van rendezvous spot and packed these 7 bros



 into this red van.

Yes, I was too lazy to walk 30 more feet and properly frame the picture.

We began this trip like we begin all good things: with a breakfast pitstop at Wackdeezy's. I accidently ordered an egg mcmuffin without any meat on it, which was more underwhelming than I could possibly put into words. Just a warm egg patty on a semi-toasted english muffin. I just don't get these europeans. Who would eat just a chemically altered egg-patty when you have the option of a sausage or bacon or ham accompaniment? But it was still the best breakfast I've eaten in this country. Did I mention that I don't like breakfast in this country? I don't like breakfast in this country.

2 and a half hour snooze. Alisch (our Czech buddy of a Czech buddy and chauffeur) rolled us into a Munich suburb around 12:30p, and after I spent half an hour interpreting the mind-bottling Munich transportation system, and after I saw what had to have been a 6-year-old child drinking a beer, I was on route to the Sheraton Westpark to meet up with Emily, Matt, Charny, and co.

I arrived and my male compadres had wisely dipped out of the hotel room in search of libation. I say wisely because there were 4 women occupying the room and one of them is certifiably fucking nuts (and her name is not Emily, Lauren, or Isabel). So nutty and Emily's two friends from Rome headed to Oktoberfest, and soonafter, Matthew and Michael returned to the room with some beers. We ye olde friends shot the shit for a while and once another one of Emily's friends arrived and dolled herself up, we five left for the Oktoberfest grounds.

Cute couple.

Cuter couple.

Cutest couple.

Oktoberfest is a very very large event. And I'm pretty sure I only saw (or only remember seeing) a small portion of the grounds. Some photography:

You could not have paid me $1000 to ride this demon. It went so high you could pretty much see it twirling from any location in Munich.  

I can't tell which is growing more quickly: my beard or my gut.

Da Band

For all of you that haven't had the pleasure of sitting, standing, singing, sweating, swaying, or swearing inside an Oktoberfest tent, "Ein Prosit" is the Oktoberfest anthem (I know I sound like a major honky for saying anthem) and I slumbled (slurred + mumbled) my way through it probably 200 times over the course of the weekend.

When we arrived on Friday, we had no problem walking right into Hofbrauhaussen, which is apparently the most English language friendly tent at Oktoberfest. We ran into Miss Margaret and her really really friendly Gettysburg companions. Just kidding. They were not friendly. Actually, all but two of them left the table scowling as soon as we sat down. But I just as well could have smelled like turd or something because they were not the only group of people I met last weekend that I did not hit it off with. Read on.

But who cares if they were bitches or if I smelled like a duece. 3 steins later I was standing on a table chanting "Seven Nation Army." And so was this guy:



You can't tell because of the angle but the shirt he's wearing is an American flag. I don't think he was American, so maybe he was making a political statement about how lazy and obnoxious Americans are. Which is valid, because I yelled at him from across the room to get he and his sweet shirt's attention.



Not long after I took that picture were we escorted out of this section of the tent, which was apparently reserved. Usually I try to drunk haggle with or bribe authority figures to let me stick around areas I'm not supposed to be in, and I'm also usually unsuccessful, but I was not even about to attempt any negotiation with the Oktoberfest security guards. Each of them looked like extremely strong versions of what would happen if Bruce Willis mated with a Bullmastiff.

And like my friend Bruce, they were all wearing black jumpsuits. I really wanna make a comment about the modern day SS, but methinks it's a bit too soon?

Bottom line, these were some scary ass German dudes. But as I found out the next day -- when I got pulled down from doing a jig on a table and was literally dragged out of the biergarten, but walked right back in where I had just come out -- that these gentlemen were more fond of using their giant arms than their tiny eyes.

So it's probably 5 or 6p, and we're no longer in the section, but somehow I got my hands on an auxiliary stein (you can only acquire a beer if you're seated at a table, but at this point there was less room at the tables than my two hams in a size 32 pair of jeans), so I made laps around the tent and the biergarten taking pictures of friends and random people and mumbling along with the band.




Friends.



Random people.

I lost Matt and Charny around lap 2 or 3, so Emily, Katie, and I took a few more laps, and I got to see firsthand how poor European dudes' game is. I have never in my life seen more persistant, aggressive, blatant attempts at fondling girls, which, as the psuedo boyfriend of one of the female targets, was not in the least bit frustrating. But I digress.

By this point, it had started to rain, which only added to the steamy, greenhouse-esque heat inside that tent. I was sweatin' ass by lap #5 or 6, so I walked outside (effectively ending my access to the inside) and parked myself under a tree to cool off. This guy had the right idea:

And Emily was so impressed by his great idea that she wanted to spoon him.

After a pleasant chat with Emily, the two of us found our way back to the hotel room (how the fuck happened I have NO idea), she passed out, and I sat in the room grumbling as I aggressively BBMed people that were still kickin'. Neither Matt nor Charny has a Blackberry (*scoff*), but I made contact with some of the aforepictured bros, who were at a hotel bar somewhere not remotely near where I was. But I figured I should go anyway.

I must have stomped around Munich in the god damn rain for an hour and a half before I found this place. I don't know whether or not it was actually located at the below intersection, but if it was, I can see why it took me 90 minutes to find it.

Everything is the same fucking word.

Soonafter I snapped the above photo, I snapped the below photo:

Exactly how I feel about pedicabs, no matter where in the world:
http://nyc.barstoolsports.com/random-thoughts/does-anybody-actually-take-pedicabs-around-nyc/

And because it's related and fucking hilarious:
http://nyc.barstoolsports.com/random-thoughts/the-war-between-pedicabs-and-horse-carriages-rages-on/

My prolonged search for the hotel also probably had something to do with how ham-boned I was at this point in the night.

Regardless, I KNOW my ham-bonage at this point in the night definitely had something to do with why I got my ass whooped about an hour later. Remember how I said I didn't hit it off with some of the new people I met? Yeah, I was referring to this.

I arrived at the hotel bar and was introduced to a Prague friend's friends (Americans), as well as a friend of those friends (also American). But I could tell from the get-go that we would not all be friends.

The tension escalated for probably 45 minutes, during which I had more than one vodka-tonic, and during which I distinctly remember not being particularly friendly to the friends of a friend. And they weren't being particularly friendly right back. Our unfriendship blossomed shortly after I polished off a vodka-t and said something about being someone's boss one day (sweet, Dolan), and before I knew it I was outside with my face on the wet pavement and a number of foots up my ass. Some feet (and/or hands) definitely found their way onto my face as well, because I walked away from the entrance to that hotel with two very black eyes.

Now as I have said once before, I am not a fighter. I'm a talker. And as a talker, and a pretty large target of a talker at that, I have seen my fair share of ass whoopings. Let me say that this particular ass-whooping makes every other ass-whooping I've ever given (there was one), gotten, or witnessed look like a spa-day. Right now, I myself look like a monster racoon, if racoons had freckles and walked upright and got their ass walloped on by two or three dudes outside a hotel in Munich.

The foots eventually made their ways out of my ass, and then I made my testosterone-fueled way back to the Sheraton for another drink before going to bed (actually, I had to leave the Sheraton for our other hotel -- not worth explaining, but we had 2 hotel rooms between 8 people -- with Emily, Matt, and Charny at 4 in the morning because the aforementioned women were occupying the bed). But then, after the four of us requested a futile 6:50a wake-up call so we could get to the tents early, we went to bed.

We woke up at noon. We got to Oktoberfest by 4. And there was no strolling into the Hofbrauhaussen as there had been yesterday. Instead, there was a mob of people out front waving Euros in the air trying to bribe the Brucemastiffs to let them in. We opted for the less crowded open air biergarten adjacent to the tent structure.

And we found a table. And we prosted adamently. And we got drunk. And then some guy wearing a squirrel hat sat down at our table. And then the saga of the squirrel hat began:

The founder of the squirrel-hat bloodline.

I absolutely could not get enough of these guys. There were like 12 of them visiting from India, and they taught me how to say cheers in Indian (I remember it sounded like "Mas'ladou"), and every fifteen seconds I'd bust out a "Mas'ladou" and these guys would go fucking nuts. In retrospect, I would not be surprised if I was actually saying something that roughly translated to "I have a small penis."

Bald, German Oliver Hardy has got the blood hands pretty down. I, on the other hand, am reppin' the two modified thumbs up gang.

Mr. Dempsey very well could be threatening me to stop asking him to invest in my non-existant film production company.

Because I sure as shit remember asking him. If there's one way to get a shrewd business man to loan you some money to establish a company in an extremely competative and risky business, it's done by drunk-pestering him at Oktoberfest when he's trying to visit his daughter. Man, I am goin' places.

And then we all left Oktoberfest. Somehow I ended up on the subway with just Matt by my side, and when we finally made it back to Heimerenplatz (Sheraton stop), I exited the train face first. I probably tripped in the gap I've been taught to watch, because I superman dove out of the train and landed square on my face. It was one of those drunken, embarrassing moments that at the time you think is the funniest god damn thing since MASH. I must have rolled around on the concrete platform for 2 minutes giggling like Nox Harrington the video artist.

After a breif vodka-tonic (drink of the semester, so far) at the Sheraton bar, Charny convinced me to come to a strip club with him. And then somehow we convinced two more old German dudes to come with us.

I'm fairly certain this was one of them. He kept his hat on the entire time.

I think the subway was closed by this hour, though, because I remember taking a cab there. And for some foolish reason I was blurting out spells of "Nein Nein Nein Nein Nein," which the German dudes thought was the funniest thing since the Indian dudes thought I was the funniest thing since MASH. But unfortunately, when we got dropped off, our elders chose Burger King over the strip club.

Some of Charny's friends from Rome had been at the smut establishment for some time, so when we were walking in with one of the kids, Charny did what Charny does best and weaseled us in without a cover. Kid's good.

But the strip club was not. This was my first time in a strip joint, and I was extremely uncomfortable. Call me old fashioned, but the sight of a half-naked, emaciated woman strutting around a circular stage using her tits to pluck Euros from the mouths of fat, sweaty European dudes in goofy Oktoberfest hats just does not appeal to me. Plus, I could not shake the tought of being in a small, mirrored room full of dudes with boners. And I paid 22 Euro for two vodka-tonics. Not my kind of joint, to say the least.

And then I made my final trip back to Heimerenplatz and fell asleep on the floor.

Fare thee well, Munich. I will never forget what I don't remember.

In current events, my old friend and big-NVTBS-fan Mike Nunez asked for a shout-out, and he wasn't the only one. My older friend Ryan Amons also requested some NVTBS love.

Ryan, the starting goaltender for the Campbell University Fighting Camels' soccer squad, recently made a big splash in the soccer world by almost winning the Atlantic Sun Conference Defensive Player of the Week Award. Congrats, Ryan. Almost only counts in horseshoes, hand-grenades, and small, private, southern college athletics.

Ryan and I at middle school graduation. We actually hated each other until 10th grade, but we both wore douchey seersucker suits to graduation, and my father made us take a picture together.

Mike hasn't done anything remarkable since he affirmative-actioned his half-cuban ass into Vanderbilt three years ago, but he's a pretty cool guy, and in high school he could beat most people in a footrace.

Mike and I being awesome.

Mike also showed me this youtube video, which I always bust out when a youtube competition heats up.



And because I won't hear the end of it from him if he isn't included in the shout-out game, a little love for my man Walter.

g2g,

Marty