Oktoberfest - Munchen-style

Our train from Barcelona to Munich took 24 hours and we had to change trains three times in France, but it was worth it. Our first night there we met our roommates Miranda and Leone who were from Australia. The night we met them they were piss drunk and throwing pig over the balcony...and by pig we mean pork (pork chop sandwiches). It was too late to really attend Oktoberfest properly the first night we were there, so we walked around and watched all the drunken people. There were more drunk people there than we had seen in one place our entire lives. It was crazy, and everyone was wearing lederhosen (sweet leather pants) and Dirndels (a traditional Bavarian dress with apron).

The next day we were going to get food when we stumbled upon a second hand store that sold outfits for Oktoberfest. Normally the dirndels and lederhosen were about $100-$400 Euro new, but at the shop they were second hand and a lot cheaper, yes even in our price range! So we ended up spending a lot of time in the shop with a German lady who didn’t speak English, but just undressed and dressed us until we looked good in our new second-hand lederhosen and dirndel. That night we went to Oktoberfest with the crazy Aussies, but didn’t wear our costumes. They showed us their cocktail bar; yes, there is a cocktail bar at Oktoberfest (they didn’t like beer). Then we went into the beer tents until we found a waitress that would serve us. You can’t buy beer unless you are seated, but it is impossible to find a table, most are reserved way ahead of time. So you just have to find a waitress who is willing to sneak you beers, because she will get a tip out of it. So we stayed in the Haufbrau tent that evening and met lots of cool (drunk) people from all over Europe. It was great, but this tent didn’t play any Bavarian music, they mostly played the Beatles or American music.

The next day we slept a lot, some more than others...as some felt better than others. We didn’t go back to Oktoberfest but went to the English Gardens in Munich instead. That was really nice, the first grass we’d seen in weeks as there is very little in Spain. It is a humongous park! It reminded us of home and autumn. Shout out to all of you going to the Pumpkin Festival, we are very sad not to be there. Spent the rest of the day nursing our hangovers and getting our costumes ready to wear.

The next day we got food and headed off to Oktoberfest in our costumes, with our new Australian roommates Matt and Ana. We had a great time with them, and met some more crazy and/or drunk people. It was pouring outside by the time we were ready to leave the tent, and nobody could get into any of the tents because they were so full. It was cool, we just sat down outside in the drizzle and had more beer with Matt and Ana. We had a cool time, and we were much smarter this time so we didn’t have hangovers the next day. Sadly, the next day we had to leave, but happily we went to Osnabruck to see Bea’s relatives! Woo-hoo!

Barcelona Barcelona

We spent our first day in Barcelona finding a place to stay and mostly exploring the town. It is pretty cool, and like Tarifa, none of the ladies on the beach wear a bathing suit top. It's pretty chill. (Bea keeps thinking of all the sailor stories her dad has told her about all these Mediterranean ports he stopped in while in the Navy. She keeps expecting to see a group of sailors walking down the beach with all the bare breasted ladies).

On Friday we did an all day Antoni Gaudi day - he is a cool dude. We checked out the cathedral he designed, which they are still building since 1882 or something. At first we thought, "What’s taking them so long?" but then we saw it and the details in every little thing, such as the columns, roof, figures; everything is so intense and must take so long to carve. Every shape is planned out to well and very ornate. He is really a sculptor, also really a genius, an all around amazingly creative guy. We walked around the city seeing his buildings, but really only got to a couple. We were going to go to the beach, but kind of got hung up on all the crazy things going on here. There is a festival that lasts four days, only about two blocks from where we are staying. Last night we were wondering why it was so incredibly loud outside our room. First there were fireworks, then a marching band came down our street, then a guy with some kind of horn, not to mention the oodles and oodles of people constantly streaming down the street and the people ringing their bike bells. It is absolutely insane. When we woke up the next morning there was confetti everywhere.

All the stores were closed because of the festival, so we had to get our dinner food from a bodega. Not the best decision because we ended up with bread, canned corn, garlic oil spread, and really bad lemon beer. Peter thought it was alright, but Bea didn’t want anything to do with it, so we decided we just go out to eat for the rest of our meals.

On Saturday just kept bumping into all crazy things all day. There was a huge gathering of drummers from all over, and they were just standing around drumming so loudly together, at least a hundred of them. Then there was the little plaza with some kind of band and people doing this strange dance in circles and bobbing around. Then there was some kind of miniature parade, a lady on a float talking and these women behind her in these weird clear orbs making poses and wearing weird costumes. Later that night we spent a couple hours walking up and down La Rambla following all sorts of different marching bands around, then got some big sangrias and called it a night.

Tarifa

We took a bus to Tarifa and stayed from 9/19 - 9/21. Tarifa is the Southern most point of Europe, right where Africa and Spain kiss and the Gibraltar straight runs through. There is so much wind there, and the town is filled with all kinds of surfers and wind surfers who either visit or move there for the wind. When we got there we took a walk, and saw Africa as we were walking down the street. It was a very pretty town, there is ocean on both sides, the Mediterranean to your left and the Atlantic to your right. Anywhere you look there is ocean, and hills or rocky cliffs beside them. We were expecting to be stuck language wise, having just lost our trusty Spanish speaking friends, but it is surprisingly diverse. We read about a cool cafe/bookshop and went there to check it out and swap some books. When we got there we asked the gentleman taking our order, "Habla Inglés?" Well he just looked at us like we were stupid and said yes. We soon realized that him, and just about everyone in the café was speaking English, in fact they were either English or Australian. It seemed like that everywhere we went. There were a few times we had to attempt Spanish, but rarely. We checked out an old Moorish castle, and hung out on the beach. Oh, and the crackhouses there are actually beach front properties. (we stumbled upon one during a stroll along the beach. It may not have actually been a crackhouse, but it was sketchy indeed.) It was a great place to visit, beautiful and relaxing. We only wish we could have stayed longer, though we were both sunburnt enough as it was.

Sevilla

September 15-19, 2005

We stayed in Sevilla from 9/15 - 9/19 and it was a blast; we broke from the tourist thing a bit. We stayed with our friend Marc, and his roommate Aaron, who has been there since July. (So Aaron definitely knows his way around) Aaron’s girlfriend Kellyn flew in from London for the weekend as well, and the both of them speak very good Spanish. They taught us how to say a couple of key phrases, but aside from these we didn't have to work very hard to communicate because they did all the talking and ordering. We went out just about every night, because it is really cheap. You can get a beer (cervezas, mostly the brand Cruz Campo, which is the only thing they sell in a lot of places) or a tinto de verano (summer wine; red wine mixed with lemon or orange Fanta and served with ice) for one Euro, and a Tapa for two euro, a smaller portion of food, but usually enough to fill you up. And people stay out really late there, probably because they get a four hour siesta in the middle of the day (between 2-6 everything is closed so that people can all go home and take a nap, which is what siesta means). But no, we didn’t just party all the time…ok, we spent a lot of time going out, but we did other cool things.

We saw the cathedral in Sevilla which is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. We went to the top of the bell tower which was really cool; you could see the whole city. It was very spacious, but the architecture itself didn’t seem as impressive as the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

The five of us (Peter, Bea, Marc, Aaron and Kellyn) all went to the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sat. which is housed in what used to be a Monastery, and later turned into a tile factory. The building was pretty spread out and though it could have housed a lot of work it only had 3 galleries open. The only ones worth talking about were some paintings that were huge and hung in the chapel. They seemed to be about decay and went perfectly in the chipping walls and fading colors of the room. There was also a really cool installation of glass droplets hung from a ceiling in a prayer room or something. These two pieces were absolutely amazing in this setting, but the rest of the art was just too modern for this old serene building. Seeing the building itself was really cool too. There was also this huge half pipe in the courtyard of the monastery. Overall, this building was so cool, but the fact that is was a Museum of Contemporary Art was a little bizarre.

That basically sums up what we did in Sevilla. We saw a few cool things, hung out with Marc, Aaron and Kellyn and went out a lot.

Louvre and on to Seville

Finally, we got to the Louvre! We’ve been waiting all week, or at least two days (it’s closed Tuesdays). It was pretty cool, but complete mob scene surrounding the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory and of course…the Mona Lisa. The Italian painting section where the Mona Lisa lives was so crowded, we were getting so tired of being pushed around that we checked out the less crowded sections. Bea learned her 5th French phrase, "Monsieur, Sortez le Musee!" (Sir, leave the museum!) We saw someone get kicked out because he took a picture (with flash!) of the Mona Lisa. Ha. That’s what you get for pushing us. We saw some other cool stuff, paintings and artists Bea remembers from numerous Art History classes, but unfortunately has forgotten most of the details about them. Peter didn’t know any of that to junk to begin with, so he was blissfully ignorant. It was a pretty art-filled day.

Now we are sitting at the train station waiting for our train! We are excited, though we will be on two trains, totaling 16-17 hours. Our next stop: Seville, Spain (to stay with our friend Marc).

Canal St. Martin

We pretty much bummed around again. We found the Canal St. Martin (another Amelie scene) and read there, watched the boats on the canal use the lock system (really cool, Bea had never seen one in action before) then read in the park nearby until we had both finished our books.

No Louvre

We arranged to get to Spain and were going to go to the Louvre…but we got there too late. Our source said it was a late night opening…it wasn’t. So we bummed around.

Creme Brulee

Today was the day of silly tourist things. Eiffel Tour; we ate ice cream under the tower, and then drew and wrote postcards in the Champs de Mars, which is right next to and has a great view of the Eiffel Tower. Arc de Triumph; breezed right by it, somewhat boring, an arc in the middle of a traffic circle. And finally, Monmartre. Not only did we get Creme Brulee (which were the largest we’ve had, so large Bea didn’t finish hers) but we strolled through the park where they filmed some scenes in Amelie… Peter was very excited.

Bonjour Paris

We did a fair amount of sleeping in to make up for the last two days, but started the day off strong making sure to get a proper crepe. We checked out the Catacombs, which were quarries that they eventually filled in with bones from various cemeteries. Eventually after that, someone decided to make neat designs out of them instead of crazy piles. They were very interesting but after a while they were pretty creepy.

We still had time left in the afternoon so we headed over to the Picasso Museum for some aesthetic reflection. Art made us hungry, and we found Rue de Montorguile which had an endless supply of cheeseries, meateries, breaderies, wineries, and so on.

The Spain-France Border is a Wash

"Could it get any worse?" said Ross right after it started raining while we were all huddled on the platform at the Marseille train station at 3am. The train station luckily had a roof over the platform, but unluckily it leaked, more so when it started pouring. It did then get worse because the drainage grate 20 feet from us suddenly erupted with water and started spreading across the previously dry platform. We all scrambled for dry land, ‘we’ now consisted of Beatrice, Peter and three others who were about the same age as us:

Marino - the Yugoslavian gypsy we met in Nice who was headed to Spain to find more gypsies whom with he could start a band. (Though we thought the title Gypsy was not PC, that is how he introduced himself.) He spoke at least 6 languages, and would wander up to a person and go through his list until they found a common language.

Martin - the multilingual Bavarian surfer on his way to study somewhere in Spain. Also the only one that spoke decent French, he was a savior.

Ross - the Brit on who was headed to Barcelona to meet up with his girlfriend to catch a connecting flight to somewhere else.

Our train was canceled halfway through its route due to rain and floods along the tracks, and all trains and roadways into Spain from France were closed as well. So we were quite stuck in Marseille, as many of the trains within the country had also been canceled. Marino told us that Marseille was very dangerous and we should stick together, then he pantomimed some stabbing and shooting gestures. Luckily there were about fifty (give or take) people from our train in the same predicament and more from other trains. We met Martin and Ross on the platform and they confirmed that with us and suggested we all stay awake because "Marseille is the most dangerous city in Western Europe." Since most of the trains had been canceled (except to Paris) we decided to temporarily scrap our plans to meet up with our friend Marc in Spain, and took the next train to Paris. We checked into our small, cheep, hotel room two blocks from the Louvre and then checked out the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Lunch in Milan

We ate a light Italian vegetarian lunch: roasted red peppers, stuffed artichoke hearts (the best thing Bea’s ever tasted), an egg thing, another egg thing, and some bread.

We started on our way to Barcelona at 3ish and sat with a couple from Orange County, CA for the next 5 hours (Jesse and Caitlin). They were both nice and kept us company for journey until we went our separate ways at Nice.

Leaving Ireland

We did come back to the airport today at the correct time for the correct flight, but it ended up being delayed for 3 hours and we spent pretty much the whole day in the airport; however, I did get the chance to try a Harp from the airport bar. It was nothing special. Also, when we landed in Milan we discovered we weren’t actually in Milan, we were 45 minutes outside of the city. Being the troopers we are, we took the bus, found a cheap hotel, and checked in around 1am. Hurrah.

Ireland - We are silly

So, we didn’t actually leave Dublin today, we had showed up to the airport early, but a little too early, about 28 hours early. They didn’t have any flights to Milan until tomorrow when our flight was actually scheduled to leave, bummer. We wandered out of the airport with our tail between our respective legs and headed back to the city and spent the rest of the day doing very little. We’re going to blame the time/date change on this one, but really what it comes down to is sheer stupidity on our part. Hehe.

Ireland

We have met some very funny people while in Ireland. Here are just a few:

- Our hostel roommates. Four boys from England, whom we never see because they stay out drinking until after we go to bed and don’t wake up until after we have left. But they have done some funny things like when I talk they don’t understand what I am saying. My accent isn’t much different from theirs, is it? Also, they say “Pervy.” Also, the other night I woke up when they came in and were talking and I heard them say, “Does she shave her armpits?” And I thought they were talking about me, but then I realized they were actually talking about someone one of them wanted to break up with and another said, “Just have her mum, then she’ll lose you.”

- Our guide on Wild Wicklow Tour. Which was also my favorite day in Ireland, because we didn’t just see Dublin. He kept pulling over (on the wrong side of the road) and picking blackberries for himself to eat. Also, he kept saying (in his awesome Irish accent) "True story, this is a true story as true as I am sitting here. Now this is a true story…" And somehow, he had been in every famous person’s house that we saw, which was a lot. And he gave everyone Jameson whiskey after a long walk and before lunch. He told us to all have a couple o’ pints at the pub at lunch and get drunk so we’d see elephants. Then after lunch he asked if anyone was drunk. Nobody said they were and he kept saying, “You’re all drunk, the lot of you, let me see your eyes…You’re drunk…and I know,” and then he drove us by a Sculpture garden that was filled with statues of elephants. He was a funny Irishman.

- There aren’t any more really good ones, but if you sit by the river Liffey you may find many hooligans of all ages drinking pints (and I am not sure if it is legal to drink in public here, but nobody seems to mind) or running from the cops because they may or may not have a pocket or hand full of weed.

Of course, we have done the tourist thing as well, gone to all the cool buildings, Dublin Castle, Irish Museum of Modern Art, St. Patrick’s Church…Guinness store house, Had a pint (or two) in the Temple Bar area. (And we also found a delicious vegetarian café and a certain yummy, Bad Ass Café.) And it has been swell, but I am more excited to go to Germany, Switzerland and Italy where we will be staying with the Natives.

Local brews we’ve had:
- Guinness
- Carlsberg (the official drink of the Irish football team)
- Murphy’s Irish Stout
- Bulmer’s Vintage Cider
- Kilkenny’s
- Bailey’s Irish Cream

I would also like to write a Disclaimer:
I take no responsibility for the hundreds of pictures Peter has not only taken of me, but put online. I apologize to any who were hoping to see more pictures of our trip, and less pictures of me, smiling, looking silly or taking pictures of things.
My sincerest apologies,
-Bea-

First Entry

This is the first entry, hurrah. The website is not done, but it is done enough for some blog stuff. Bea and I fly out of Boston at 7pm today and we will not return until December 14th.

I’m just about ready to go to bed; I hoped I packed everything I need because it's already too late.

Oh yes, for all you new comers, Bea and I will be traveling around Europe for a while and working at a couple farms in Italy. Check out the program we're doing the farming through here. I had intended upon finishing this website before the trip, but if you look around you will notice that there are a lot of places that seem to be lacking because I never got the time to complete it all, but that will change in time.