Walking into Oktoberfest, I wasn't really sure what to expect. At 9:30am, you enter the tents and sit down at long tables. At 10am the first round of beer is served. By 10:30, you are best friends with all the people at your table, and a few people are already on their second liter. I met the most interesting people at my table. The group to our left was from Australia. They were all here on vacation traveling around Europe together. A pair of sisters sat to our right. One of them lived in Los Angeles while the other lived in Amsterdam, doling out love advice on her website. At 11am, the music starts and everywhere people are standing on tables dancing and singing along to the traditional German songs. By now the strong willed start standing on tables to chug their liters. If you don't finish it or drip some everyone boos. Even girls were standing up to chug their liters!
If you're not wearing the traditional lederhosen or dirndl, you definitely stand out. Everyone was wearing these traditional bavarian costumes and it was so funny to see them wandering the streets of Munich in these outfits. Outside the tents, Oktoberfest is just like a county fair. Food vendors line the fair ground selling every German food you could ever want. I was in food heaven! Everything was so delicious. The bratwurst, apple strudel, schnitzel, and the kaischerschmarrn were all so good. This was the best food experience I've had in Europe so I wasn't too bothered spending all of my money on food. The rest of the fair was filled with typical rides, little kids, and families walking amidst the drunken tent-goers. 
Munich is a beautiful city. On Saturday, Diane and I walked around the city and saw so many beautiful buildings and gardens. We went to the Munich Residenz, the former palace for the Bavarian monarchy, built in the 1300s. The style of the palace was so different than all the ones I've seen in London, and it was incredible. Bronze lions flank the entrance and if you rub their noses you're supposed to get good luck. I was too short to reach their noses though. After that we walked to Hoftgarten, a court garden, and the English Garden, one of the largest public gardens, even bigger than central park!
We finished seeing all of the sights of Munich by 11am and weren't really sure what to do next. Diane really wanted to see the Dachau concentration camp, so we went. I really did not want to go and knew that it would be an incredible sad and horrifying experience, but we went and it was. I think that will be my first and last time at a concentration camp because it truly was a horrible place to see. Walking in, the camp just feels terrifying, terrible, dark, and awful.
And after that incredible sad experience, we went back into the city to grab a bratwurst before going home. A tip, even though it seems like no one checks to see if you have tickets on the train, they do check, and they will fine you for trying to ride the train for free.
So now I'm back in London and happy to be surrounded by familiar places and English!
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