Weekend getaway-driving the autobahn and drinking beer (not at the same time)

Mr.HH was hoping to get home early on Friday so we could leave,but of course that didn’t happen and we ended up not leaving Heidelberg until almost 6:30pm. I wasn’t too worried though and figured we’d get there no later than 10:30. I did not realize that Murphy had hitched a ride in the back though. Oh Murphy, you’re such a bad travelling companion. Around 9pm, about 100 miles from Garmisch, Murphy decided it was time to wake up and show us what he was made of. My poor sweet Ulrika started making a weird sound and a warning light came on that read “Extremely low tire pressure. Pull over.” WHAT? Oh, no! Ulkrika! I pulled over as much as I could (there are no shoulders on the autobahns for some reason) and Mr. HH got out to check it. We had an extremely flat tire. We were about 4 miles from the closest Rasthof (usually has a gas station, hotel, restaurant or two, cafe, small shop and bathrooms) and weren’t sure we would make it. Fortunately, we’d gone less than a kilometer and found a call box service area where I could pull over. There are call boxes all along the autobahns and I was so happy! I could call ADAC and they’d come fix us up in no time. Huzzah! Mr. HH was not keen on calling them though because he’s a manly man and could fix it himself. Oooookaaaaaaay. We paid for ADAC, but let’s not use it. We unpacked the pack of the car (of course you have to remove everything to get to the spare), and Indy and I sat on the side of the road in the cold and watched Mr. HH be a he-man. The jack has never been used before and was really difficult for him to use. I tried hard not to stare at the call box and nearly lost it when Indy,who was watching Mr. HH struggle, leaned against me and said in his “Spongebob narrator”voice “Twenty…….hours…….later.” OMG, I love that boy. I laughed so hard. Fortunately Mr. HH didn’t hear him because he was not in the mood for humor.

We made it to our hotel slowly (sooooo slowly) without further incident, got our room key from the safe (24 hour reception? No way!). They give you a code to access the outside wall safe and let you find your own way. We were not in the main hotel, but the “suites” in the building across the street. We crashed hard and woke up to a beautiful and chilly Bavarian morning. This is the view from the patio off the back of our suite.

Jealous? It’s so picturesque and quaint. It made me want to climb a mountain and sing. Well, maybe not climb a mountain, but maybe take a train or lift up one and sing.

Do you remember the photo I showed you last week of our hotel from the website? I wondered if it would really look like that. Here is the website photo and the one I took:

Pretty good, huh? The website photo was taken from the roof of the house next to our building. The flowers are different, but other than that, I think they represent themselves well.

We met up with TOM and TOM’s wife in the restaurant (I love that breakfast comes with most hotels in Europe) and made a plan for the day, while the super awesome front desk lady called all over the G-P area to find a garage that was open on Saturday (not many are) to replace Ulrika’s tire. She finally found one and we zipped over to drop Ulrika off before heading to the bahnhof to catch the train to Munchen (Munich). Here are some photos from the train.

TOM and Mr. HH TOM’s Wife and me

If you look behind me and to the right, you’ll notice that the teenager sitting behind me was wearing Lederhosen. Awesome!

We arrived in Munich and followed the crowd of people wearing Lederhosen and Dirndls to the Theresienwiese where the Oktoberfest is held. I did not realize the scale of this thing! It is massive!!! It’s like a HUGE fair with beer halls. Indy and the girls wanted to ride the rides, but we had stuff to see first!

These were taken inside one of the beer halls, but I can’t remember which one. Reservations for tables inside the halls need to be made a year in advance and cost approximately $600 per table (a table will seat about 10 adults-closely). Needless to say we did NOT sit inside a beer hall. Check out the decor though.

Can you believe that? Can you believe those women carry so many of the 1ltr beer mugs? And some of them hold 3 or 4 in each hand! The mugs themselves weigh about 2-3lbs, plus the weight of the beer. Talk about strong arms.

The outside of the beer halls were pretty amazing too.

We tried to get a seat in several of the outside biergartens (just outside the beer halls themselves), but that was next to impossible. Mr. HH and TOM were ready to give up, but TOM’s Wife was crazy persistent. She found a group of teens who had a table (outside) who wanted to leave to check out the rest of the fest, but not lose their table. We offered to hold their seats and so we sat down with the friends who didn’t want to go explore. Some of them were perfectly fine, despite a litre or two of beer, while others were sloppy drunk. Slop-py. When they found out we were Americans, they went crazy. “We love Americans!” they said at least 100 times in the 2 hours we sat there. It was so funny. They were really sweet kids. Here’s photos of the outside beirgarten and the kids we sat with. BTW, notice the size of the pretzel Indy is holding.

Oscar is the one waving and was not drunk, nor was the boy in the green whose name I can’t remember (he’s from Moscow though, I remember that),but the boy in the batman hat was drunk. Crazy drunk.

And now for some incredibly “controversial” photos. Don’t freak out, it was just a sip and if you look at the third photo, you’ll notice that we have nothing to worry about.

Beer was not Indy’s thing. Which is good, but he asked if he could try it and we figured one little sip at Oktoberfest wouldn’t hurt.

After the other teens came back and we gave rounds of hugs, there were a few more “We love Americans!” we left to go ride a few rides, take in the sites, eat some yummy treats and head back to Garmisch before the crowds got too thick (it’s not a place for kids after 5pm).

We had so much fun, but were completely pooped by the time we made it to the train. We ate at a little Irish Pub next to our hotel and then headed back for some much needed sleep. Here’s Indy about 2 minutes after he laid down.

Come back tomorrow for photos of a flea market in Oberamergau, the monastery at Ettal, the 1936 Olympic stadium and the Partenach gorge.