After a beautiful train ride from Ljubljana, through Austria and into Germany, we disembarked to find people drinking and puking in the street at 11 am. We were in the right place. Munich is a really cool city, but who cares about that. Oktoberfest was all that mattered. Everyone in the city is getting plastered, including old ladies and 16 year old kids, all at the same party. The tents only sell
drinks in stein form (1 litre). 20 pisses and a small fortune later and you are best friends with all 50 people within yelling distance. They are likely all Australian. I discovered it is possible to survive for 6 days on only beer and giant pretzels. And after 4 litres of beer, 10 euros for a pretzel somehow seems like a bargain. There's no better way to finish off a day of drinking beer than carnival rides. Pinning strangers in the corner of the bumper car track, and repeatedly smashing into them, is a great way to meet people.
We randomly bumped into Ed Jackson, and his pal Gord, at the Paulaner tent. Gord would polish about 3-4 litres of beer by 4 pm and then disappear, somehow making it back to the hotel. I am confident that he endured many adventures that we (or him for that matter) will never know about. Ed is Dave's dad. He would stick around till evening, introducing himself as 'Dave's dad' to everyone, whether the person knew who Dave was or not.Our exciting overnight train ride to visit Andrew in Copenhagen consisted of people getting arrested, sudoku puzzles, ipod videos, and staring at the person across from me for hours on end. In Copenhagen we essentially watched tv and ate junk food for 6 days straight. It was fantastic.
I went to the Netherlands next, while Dave went to Sweden. After an hour or two of listening to 'One is the Loneliest Number', my separation anxiety passed. A bit of window shopping for prostitues (literally) provided nothing to my taste, so I met up with some Dutch folk (met earlier in the trip), for some delicious Dutch beer and several shots of some sort of gasoline-like beverage. They have an entire separate traffic system for bicycles there. Nobody wears helmets, because helmets are not cool, as I've always told my mom.
Now an excerpt from a conversation with a British Customs agent:
BC: Where are you going after England?
Me: Australia.
BC: For how long?
Me: Not sure, I have a work visa.
BC: Let me see it.
Me: Its in the internet. They give it to me when I get there.
BC: I'm aware how their visas work. I don't believe you when you say you have a visa. Do you think Canada would let me in without proper documentation?
Me: Umm I dunno, Yes? Why do I need to show my Australian work visa to get into England?
BC: You just do.
Me: Well, shit.
BC: You're not getting in this country. You will be sent back to Germany. They will send you back to the Netherlands, etc. You will hop through airports back to Canada.
Me: Shit.
Me: Just let me in the country you fucking douchebag.*
...
* This part of the conversation occured in my brain.
I'm in Australia now so needless to say I managed to get into the UK. This is basically the end of this blog since all I'm doing now is working and getting sunburns.
