Weekend #4: Stuttgart and Oktoberfest

I was really excited for this weekend because we got to go to the 200th anniversary of the Oktoberfest Festival (aka something to tell the grandkids)!  The planning for this trip was a little complicated because we didn't want to spend the night in Munich since the hostel prices were well into the 100 euros/night bracket.  We decided to visit Stuttgart on the way to Munich and spend the night in a hostel there instead, which was much cheaper!  We left Metz very early in the morning on Friday and spent the whole day and night in Stuttgart.  Early Saturday morning, we trained to Munich and spent the entire day and part of the night at Oktoberfest before taking the couchette back to Metz.

Stuttgart is the home to the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz empires.  We visited the Porsche museum on Friday.  For someone who doesn't like cars that much, I enjoyed the museum.  We made our way back to the main shopping area and grabbed some much missed Starbucks.  The Starbucks we went to asked if you wanted your drink for here or to-go because drinks that weren't to-go were served in a REAL mug.  Crazy!  Next, we visited the museum of modern art.  Unfortunately, we just missed the new exhibit about food and art by one day, so I felt like there wasn't that much to see.  There were still some really interesting pieces and I enjoyed the museum.  We headed back to our hostel (Inter-Hostel)  to ask where a good place to grab dinner was and they directed us down the street to a typical German restaurant.  I've never been a big fan of German food and let's just say that I'm still not, haha.  That evening, we took the train up to the observatory tower and got to ride the elevator all the way up (130+ floors) and see all of Stuttgart at night.  The path to get to the tower was a lot of fun because it was not lit well and through a creepy forest.  We had a lot of fun scaring each other (playfully, of course!)  We were exhausted by the time we got back to our hostel and all went to bed.

Early the next morning, we walked to the train station to catch our train to Munich.  Once we got on board, we realized that our seats we in a compartment (much like the ones from the Harry Potter movies!)  We excitedly took a lot of pictures of our home for the next few hours.  We arrived in Munich around noon and immediately set out for Oktoberfest.  After walking around for awhile, we realized that we should go back to the train station and ask for directions or a map.  The tourism office was really helpful and we purchased tickets for the S train and made it to the festival, finally!

Arrival at Oktoberfest!

We took awhile to get beers because it was too crowded to find a table to sit down and order.  Eventually, someone yelled over at us and asked if we were from Canada because one of us (Curtis) had a Canada shirt on.  The group that yelled was a hockey team from Italy, but most of the players were from all over the world...including Canada.  The team let us borrow their table to order beers and the drinking funtimes commenced!  It was pretty awesome that we got beer because of Curtis' Canada shirt because he made a point to wear it on that particular day so people wouldn't think he was American.

After 2 L of beer and a few trips to the bathroom, we went to the carnival area and paid way too much money to ride some of the rides.  We ran into some other GTL-ers at the Ferris wheel and we hung out with them for the rest of the night before catching an S train to the main train station to get our couchette back to Metz.

I'd say that Oktoberfest was a little overrated, but it was definitely an experience to be there and I had a lot of fun regardless!

Click here for pictures from this trip.

-JChamp