Oktoberfest 2010 - "Its like the thanksgiving of beer"

I just got back from oktoberfest about an hour ago and it was the best weekend ever. Germany was amazing! Oktoberfest was all i hoped it would be and more. I was a lil worried since it was built up so much and probably one of my more expensive trips tht it wouldnt live up to its standards, but i have to worry about that no more hahah This was by far my favorite weekend of being abroad thus far. I left thursday afternoon on a train to  Rome to meet hayley. I had class from 9-415 and walked to the train station and took a 5pm train. The trains run very frequently to Rome so its very easy. it only took about an hour and a half which is not bad at all. Italian trains are also the most comfortable trains ive ever been on. There's first class and second class seats and i got 2nd bc they're cheaper but i honestly thought i was in the wrong place when i got to my seat. Plenty of leg room, a table for eating or reading or using or your computer, outlets to charge electronics, people coming by with refreshments...i thought i was on a first class plane ride haha I arrived in rome around 630 and met up with hayley. She took the local bus to come meet me at the train station. Rome is huge so buses are the way to get around, its not like florence where you can walk everywhere its more like nyc with its crazyness. Florence is a big city, but not that big i kind of like that about florence. its a city but never overwhelming. Also Rome cant have a subway system bc of all the antiquity so they cant dig underground or blow anything up to build subways sooo its only option is buses, which are super inefficient bc of traffic and just bc italians have no concept of time at all. Thats the one frustrating but true stereotype about italians, they are always late, whether it be in restaurants with the service where you have to wait 45 minutes to get a check after a quick dinner, or buses to come on time or teachers for classes, being a new yorker where were all about speed and efficiency and rushing this baffles me hahah its nice and refreshing at times others ill just get annoyed haha but anyways so i got to rome and me and hayley took a bus to a restaurant in Trestevere (spelling could be incorrect...a neighborhood of rome though btw) to meet 2 of her friends. The restaurant was called Dar Poeta and was the most amazing pizza place id ever been. I had a huge pizza with cheese, potatoes, and all sorts of toppings. and also had some of hayley pizza tht had delicious cooked peppers on it. we also got bruschetta, one pomodoro bruschetta and one pesto with cheese which was amazingggg for an appetizer. we also got lots of the house wine, which was delicious! another plus of italy even the cheap wine is good wine haha we got a calzone filled with chocolate for desert and i was stuffed to the brim. It was sooo goood. and it was so cheap too! it was like 12 bucks a person and we had huge pizzas each wine and desert! it was also just so much fun bc hayleys two friends were hilarious and we got along super well and obviously me and hayley always have a good time together. we were at the restaurant for quite some time and thean headed to hayleys apt which is in Monteverde (another neighborhood of Rome) her apt is super nice and one of her roommates was away for the weekend already so i got a nice bed and slept for about 3 hrs haha than unfortunately had to get up at like 3am to go catch our flight. the airport is like 30-45 mins away and we wanted to make sure we got there on time and my flight was boarding a 615am and had to be there early to go through security, which actually only took all of 5 seconds so we had some time to wait in the airport but better early than missing our flight or something haha so my flight left at 645 and i got to munich in about an hour and a half and hayley was on a different flight so i waited about an hour or so in the airport for hers to show upo. While waiting i got some starbucks which was amazing bc they dont have it in italy and sometime i miss normal coffee haha After finding hayley we got our stuff and figured out the subway system to get to our hotel. The german subway system was amazing so clean and efficient and everything they did made sense. they had signs saying when the next train was coming how far away it was etc etc everything was so nice. all the people were nice too, everyone was helpful and we were already huge german fans by the time we got to our hotel hahah our hotel was actually super nice it was a Sheraton, and me hayley and her two friends kim and kailey from richmond were sharing a room we had two big twin beds and they were super comfy and it wokred out perfectly. it was nice to stay in a hotel. Kim and kailey are hilarious and the four of us had so much fun together. When we first got to our hotel we took a quick shower and nap got a snack and headed to oktoberfest. Getting to the festival from out hotel was about as easy as it gets, we took one subway which was right next to the hotel a couple stops, than all you had to go was get out and follow the lederhosen for a few blocks haha We got to oktoberfest by around 4/5ish and it was PACKED. Millions upon millions of people, and i wish lederhosen werent so expensive bc you feel a lil left out not wearing them haha we tried to wait on line for some of the beer tents but at that hour of the day it wasnt happening. Everyone was filled to the brim and they werent letting more people in. But that was totally fine, me hayley and some richmonders went and got lots of chocolate covered strawberries from these stands whcih were the most delicious things ever and had my first germand sausage which i am now in love with. So delicious. After eating as much as we could fit into our stomachs we went to a lil bar outside of one of the tents. Here is our first oktoberfest beer! German beer is so delicious!!! So much better than any beer ive ever tasted. It was enjoyable.

It started pouring rain so it was even more packed under the awnings bc people were trying to stay dry but still get their beer haha and it was pretty cold too so it wasnt a warm rain. I was freezing for a bit bc i was wearing pants but a shorts sleeved german soccer jersey (which was a great idea to get bc the germans love their soccer hahah).

So we hung out there for awhile talking and making friends. Trying to learn a few german words haha at around 9 they stopped serving beer and started only serving this wine drink, its barely alcoholic and its supposed to be watery to bring people down from all the beer haha we learned all about it from these 2 super old german guys that me and hayley made friends with and they bought us a drink which was really nice. After that last drink we headed back to our hotel in the pouringggg rainnnn. (pic below: germans using tables as tents in the beergarten hahah im not the best photographer so the quality isnt that great especially with my camera being soaked and all...)

It was still super fun though and Munich is an absolutely gorgeous city! I could definitely see myself living there for a bit, I wish i was there for longer than just a quick weekend. Later that night me and hayley ordered chinese food and even that was amazing the germans seem to have everything down haha The next day (saturday) we all woke up at like 6am got dressed and headed to oktoberfest. The tents were already packed at 7am but we only had to wait a bit and we got in and got a table.

we had an awesome table it was right next to the band (the two guys in the second picture were tuba players who loved us) and we kept running into people I knew (such a small world even when im all the way in germany ran into high school friends, grls from the liberty lax team, etc too funny) They started serving beer at 9, so these crazy german woman who can carry like 15 GIANT beer mugs to the tables bring them over to you. you can also order food at the table so we had tonsss of delicious pretzels in the morning and than at lunch time we ordered chicken for the table and everyone got about half a bird for lunch haha it was the most amazing food ever!! We had fun standing on our tables chanting german songs like "ein prosit", (i just looked it up on youtube to see how close we were to singing it right...not too too bad hahah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD2-aSbcW0s) we had some german guy who was about 16 and so adorable teach our table all the words. He said we did awesome but idk how well we were pronouncing some of these intense words hahah Me and hayley thought it was the funniest thing on the subway to try and announce the stops bc they were all intense words like Odeonplatz and i cant even spell the others hah so we spent the majority of our time in this HB beer tent and than a lil after lunch we headed out to the fairgrounds and met all sorts of characters and ate more delicious food of course haha oktoberfest is definitely not only about beer its alot  about food, which is my kind of party hahah

we also went to this bar that was a giant merry go round/carousel type thing which was definitely an experience to go on! We hung out there for awhile and than at around 730pm we were so tired and done for the day haha figured out how to get back to our hotel and watched Germanys Got Talent!, like americas got talent but german version...they even have a guy that acts like the Simon of american idol but i think the german version guy is way scarier hahah it was pretty funny. we went to bed pretty early and than woke up early to get our flight. the flights are so nice and easy got to the airport via subway got some food got on my flight and headed back to italia! once at the rome airport i took a train to the rome train station than another train to the florence train station and walked home from there. the public transportation here is amazing. too good to be true. i am super exhausted now but this was one of the most fun weekends yet. I would love to go back to germany and explore munich more, its a beautiful city. Everything about it was amazing!!!!! (below is me and hayley with our bavarian hats that we had to purchase in order to at least sort of blend in, everyone dresses up its so fun!, and also me and kailey, and me hayley and gina)

 

:)

Yesterday me sarah amanda and alyse did alot of planning of trips and what not. we decided for fall break were going to go to amsterdam and dublin for the first half and than do a trip to greece through florence for fun at the end for the last 5 days. i am SOOOO excited. we just have to look into flights and stuff, the hostels are super cheap which is nice, its the transportation thats always more difficult to plan but were going to the library again tomorrow to figure out more about that. we also are trying to plan a trip to barcelona which would be amazingggggg. theres so many places i want to go and its so strange that i can just go to these countries for a weekend or so, its so unreal and amazing. After we did some planning we went to italian class and got our quizzes back, i got a 98 :) was pretty happy about that one haha and than afterwards i went to the gym and came back to my room and relaxed until dinner. dinner was soo much fun, it was just me lauren and the 3 austrailian boys and than darlene came a lil later. we were at the dinner table from 8 till 11 just laughing and talking about how we eat pasta everynight haha watching funny youtube videos and having a good time. the boys are really funny and remind me of my brothers so much. were like a lil family here its fun. and i was supposed to meet up with sarah and amanda at like 10 theyre like wat the heck took u so long! i was like i was at dinner...for 3 hrs hahaha and than there was chicken wings that were left in the oven and we werent sure if they were for us but we were still hungry and they looked amazing and the boys were like should we eat it...and darlenes like lets do it. hahahaha so we ate all the chicken. found out tonight that it was supposed to be for tonights dinner and anna was like wat the heck u guys ate all my chicken! and first she blamed just the boys but than darlene was like it was my idea! hahaha anna had to go to the store and get mroe meat hahah but she got pork for tonight and that was delicioussss so it worked out anyways haha and we had pasta carbonara which was tasty as well. im super full after tonights dinner. im staying in tonight and going to be early, i was out super late last night but it was fun we went to a new club called club yab. i had made friends with this club promoter last weekend and he always tells us what clubs are good on what nights so he was a good friend to make. and hes originally from brooklyn and speaks english and italian so its nice to have a fellow new yorker haha club yab was super fun and me and amanda did some crazy dancing! only bad thing was i had checked my bag and than i lost my ticket! i was trying so hard to communicate with the lady but she wasnt understanding and i was starting to freak out but some guy was super nice and translated for me and we worked out the whole thing and i didnt even have to pay a fee for losing my ticket sooo that worked out well. than we got kebabs on our way home from the place next to my apt it was so delicious. my road has so many good food places as ive said and its amazing. i wanna try the sushi place next i wonder if its any good here, sushis not common here at all its the only sushi place ive seen. im going to go shower and get into bed im exhausted. ill hopefully skype with matt for a bit than just hit the hay! got class early tomorrow and all day sooo its a long one!

wonderful weekend in firenze...and more to come!

We ended up not going to Pisa today b/c it was super rainy this morning and not looking good, but of course it cleared up and turned out to be gorgeous but thats alright well be able to go another time was just a lil bummed. This weekend was still amazing between hayley coming and just exploring florence it was great. last night me sarah amanda and alyse went to tijuana, a mexican restaurant and the food was amazing!! and a super nice change from italian food haha italian food is delicious but we have it everyyyy dayyy. i had a chicken fajita and me and sarah split this delicious nacho appetizer. it was so delicious. than we got some wine and hungout in the plazza where tonsss of students and people hangout at night. we ended up not even going to a club we just chilled and had a relaxing fun night it was super nice. i slept in this morning which i havent done lately and that was refreshing and later on in the day we did a lil shopping and got delicious gelato. We also had chinese food for dinner. we just went for a bunch of different foods this weekend haha it was good and super cheap which is always a plus. the place was right on my road too so nice and convenient. i love the road i live on its super close to everything and it has a million hole in the wall type restaurants on it that are all DELICIOUS. kebabs which are more like burritos with everything u can possibly think of in them are my new favorite thing, theres this shop next to my apt with this adorable lady who makes the best food ever. im goin there tomorrow for lunch haha i got some hw and stuff to do this week so ill be busy and thiniking of taking an italian cooking class on tuesday just have to see if theres spots left tomorrow so tht will be yummy. and this weekend is oktoberfest!!!!! im so exciteddd!!!!! im leaving thursday night for rome (bc my flight is out of rome) and staying at hayleys apt bc my flight is at 645am friday morning. im soooo excitedddd were going to have so much funnnn, itll be me hayley and a bunch of her richmond friends tht are super cool and than sarah amanda and alyse are going to be staying at the campgrounds so well all meet up at the tents and party together! Were going to get matching german soccer (excuse me "football") jerseys to wear for the weekend haha so well all match and we dnt want to bring any nice clothes so we thought tht would be a fun idea. I iwsh lauren was coming this weekend but she had already booked her oktoberfest stuff for the weekend after before she knew wen we were going but thats okay. its going to be so funn!!!!! itll be good to go with a big group so we can all keep track of each other and be safe and together. im so excited to go to munich ive heard its a really cool city. anyways im going to bed early tonight than getting up bright and early tomorrow going to the gym getting my kebab planning fall break (greece!) and a few other trips with alyse amanda and sarah and than italian class (i had to write a story for italian class and i wrote about a parrot named squawky who lives on a pirate ship and finds gold hahaha i havve limited vocab...should be funny) and thannn checkin out the cooking class thing and going to the library to start researching for my medici family sooo itll be a long day! and i think were going to check out club space tomorrow night which i havent been to yet but is supposedly super fun sooo well see how tht is. so excited for this week/weekend!!!!!!!

Great weekend...

I just took hayley to the train station to send her back to Rome :( so sad! but it was sooooo much funnnnn.

we had two super awesome nights together so that was good. she got in thursday at like 9 which worked perfect bc i finished up dinner than ran over to the station to meet her and her friend siri and that friends bff from home emily. all thrree of them were staying in the hostel together, which strangely was right on my road! so convenient. her friends were really cool and fit right in with my friends. We took them to shots cafe bc its our favorite bar and the bartender loves us, and than we went to club twice. we had suchhhhh a good time and hayley was hilarious. she was super tired the next morning when we went to the diner to get eggs and stuff sooo she pretty much slept a ton that day and couldnt do much (of course wouldnt expect anything else from hayley hahah) and than we took it a lil easier the next night bc we got up early this morning and hit up some museums and the markets and stuff. hayley was in love with all the art work and architecture her being an art history buff and all haha so its great walking around with her bc she has a story about everything. we also all went to dinner last night at this restaurant on my road called gato e volpo (the cat and the wolf) and it was DELICIOUS. and reasonably priced which is always a major plus haha so that was nice i got pasta carbonara and the bread was so amazing. all in all it was greatttttt 2 day visit, and i cant wwait to visit her in roma!!!! next weekend is oktoberfest sooo i also be seeing hayley again woo. ill take a train into rome thursday ngiht than my flight is outta rome friday morning at 6something AM. thats going to be so much fun i cant wait. Tonight ill be goin out with sarah amanda alyse and maybe a few others. lauren came out with us last night and we had such a good time, shes so easy going im so glad i roomed with her.

above, this is me and hayley having way too much obviously hahaha
below, is emily, siri and hayley at Shots, theyre so much fun!

alyse just posted more pictures from amalfi coast soooo heres some pics from that weekend i shouldve included a couple posts ago....first picture is all the bentley grls on the hike, second is me amanda and sarah going out in sorrento, 4th and 5th is me and alyse on the hike, and the last one is all of us in front of our bungalow!

Hayley is coming to florence!!!!!

Today was my super long day of classes. got up at 8 had a quick bfast than ran to class. Had MG class first where we went over a bunch of econ stuff but thanks to my awesome econ teacher snyder from bentley i already knew everything that we were talking about, and our teacher thought me and the other bentley kids in my class were just super smart haha than i had history of the medici family class, the begining was SO boring bc my teacher is the most unexciting person ever butttt for the second half of class we went on a field trip to the san lorenzo church and that was super cool. San lorenzo was a saint because he used to work for a king who asked him to collect all the townspeoples money and jewels because he needed it to pay people off, instead of taking the people valuable san lorenzo brought all the townspeople to the king and said the people are your jewels you dont need money...so the king burned him on a grill! The grill was a common symbol throughout the church. For example all the columns in the church has architectural "grills" on them:

We went to see this church because it was commissioned to be built by Cosimo Medici. The Medici family crest was all over the church, and Cosimo and his sons and a few others in the medici family are buried there. Their tombs were really cool, very intricate, huge and gorgeous. The outside of the church is actually not that pretty, but as soon as you walk in its breathtaking and huge. Its all grey and white stone, and the ceiling has gold ornamentation on it. The gold was added on later during the baroque period when using gold to decorate architecture became popular.This is the outside of the church....

and than here is the inside....

So that was pretty cool. Unfortunately we had to rushhhh out of the church after the tour b/c me amanda and sarah all had italian next and we had a quiz! I was a lil nervous but it turned out to be really easy and i think i got 100 :) good way to start the semester! finally italian was over and my long class day was done! I came back and went to the gym, and than after was starving and knew i wouldnt be able to hold out till dinner so went to the 99cent store and bought a ton of snacks, and the lady there was really nice i either had to give her a 50euro bill or i was like 30cents short so she just let me have the snacks for 30cents cheaper haha than i came back and showered and am now realizing till dinner at 8. Im super excited for this weekend, im always excited for the weekend but this ones even better bc HAYLEYS COMING TONIGHT!!!! she gets in around 8 or 9!!!!!! im sooo excited to take her around florence and party together. Its only been a few weeks but feels like i havent seen her in forever. were going to have so much fun! shes staying tonight and friday. saturday night she leaves for cinque terra i believe and is doing a day trip there sunday. sunday i think ill be doing a day trip to pisa, so of course ill have to take my picture with the tower haha anyways im going to take a quick nap and than eat dinner and than the fun weekend begins! woo!

Just another day in firenze... : )

I had class nice and early today which was a lil brutal since we went out last night, but i was good and didnt stay out too too late! i had sculpture from 9-230 and it was great we started making the "subtraction" projects, and at first i didnt like mine at all. I redid it about ten times, but in the end i made a pretty cool sculpture. Im excited to get it fired and all officially done and bring it home! Sculpture class is super fun and all the grls in my class are really chill we all went to lunch during our 30 minute break and got delicious salads at this place down the road from class. I had italian after sculpture and that wasnt anything new or exciting we just reviewed for our quiz tomorrow! im super nervous about it, its pretty basic stuff but still difficult! im good with the vocab its just the definite articles and the forms of verbs and stuff where it gets confusing to me, im working on it now sooo hopfully ill be super ready by tomorrow. i know everything i think im just nervous, want to do well on my first quiz of the semester! after italian i went to the gym even though i wanted to nap so badly, was very proud of myself haha than came back and showered and did some reading for history class and my management class ready. Management reading was stuff we had discussed last class so was pretty easy, history was awful! it was soooo longgg and read like the most boring history textbook in the world, it was font size 2 and it was about italian politics in the 1400's...sounds like tons of fun right? I think im going to like the class bc of the trips and interesting info, but my teacher is boring and assigns boring work so thats the only bummer. we had dinner at 8 as usual, and its always interesting with about 10 people eating at this huge table, massive amounts of pasta and mozzarella and tomatoes, SO delicious. we had an amazing fruit salad for desert that was awesome. the austrailian boys staying here are like haydon and christians age and theyre pretty funny and help me with my italian bc they speak english but are also fluent in italian (so jealous!) and they remind me of my bros and i miss them! theres this older woman Doris who is so strange and speaks a billion languages, but she never makes sense. maybe shes learned too many and cant speak anything anymore haha  but the austrailian kids think shes hilarious and the dynamic between them just has me cracking up all dinner. after dinner i came back to my room to study and am still doing so, just taking a quick break. lauren went out for a drink with some of her friends and invited me butttt had too much work to do! guess i am starting school now gotta get used to that part of being abroad, cnt just party and travel all the time hahaha anyways i gotta get back to studying but just thought i could recap my day and use this as a lil brain break time

Amalfi Coast Continued...

After we got back to sorrento that night we got dressed to go out. We went to a karaoke bar, which was sooo much fun. After going to dinner at our new favorite pizza place of course, where we each got a huge pizza to ourselves and a bottle of 2.50 euro wine haha Me and amanda sang a spice girls song of course and we rocked the houseeeee.

it was a fun night, everyone had a super good time and we left by like 1am soo went to bed not too too late. had to get up early the next morning to get a train to pompeii! The trains were much easier to figure out than the buses. So we got on a train to pompeii, and arrived in about 30 minutes. There was a ton of fresh orange juice stands, when we got off so i had a glass and it was so delicious and fresh. We than got a map and headed into the ruins of pompeii. they were so cool, its something everyones been learning about in school since like 2nd grade so it was weird to see it up close and personal. Some of the people who were frozen in stone was kinda creepy. The town was just unreal. We had a guide book and a map so i pretended to be a tour guide for our group and read aloud to all of us haha it was weird to see Mt Vesuvius right there and imagine the eruption that occured in 79AD! it was so long ago i dont understand how everything was preserved so well.

I wish we had time to do the drive up to the top of mt vesuvious but we just didnt have time, we had to be back by 4pm to get our bus back to florence! it was a long a jampacked weekend but totally worth it. the bus ride home was pretty brutal though, it took about 10 hrs and everyone was tired and cranky haha but watched some movies and after dropping some people off in rome we got our own row for the last 3 hrs of the trip so wasnt so bad. the weekend as a a whole was so unreal. Today i was a little tired but didnt have class till 3 so that was nice. and was super productive joined the gym and worked out so that was good. Its a rainy after noon so im going to eat dinner than organize some stuff than get to bed early!