Prost! The German equivalent of cheers, is accompanied by a sometimes stein shattering clashing of beer mugs. You could barely go a few minutes with a beer in your hand without someone tapping you on the shoulder and yelling Prost! in your facing, forcing another swig.

The main purpose of our trip was to head see and experience Beerfest. The festival is in Munich, about 1.5 hours from our Austrian chalet. We headed in early on Saturday morning for the opening of the festival. Although we got their a couple of hours before the official start (at 12pm, with the mayor ceremonially tapping the first keg) it was very hard to find a seat. There are 13 beer halls, each sitting about 6,000 (about 78,000 people seated at once. About 7 million people go to the festival over the 3 weeks and consume 3.8 million litres of beer. Although you might think that’s only 1/2 a litre each, for the Germans it is a family event and I am guessing at least 1/4 of the people are non-drinking kids) and you will only get served if you are sitting. On our 4th or 5th search of a beer hall, we found some seats outside in one of the beer gardens with some strangers.

At 12, we heard a big boom in the distance, and a cheer went up. The beer started the flow. A couple of minutes later, our lovely Fraulein carrying about 10 steins came to our table. This is no mean feat, each stein has 1 litre of beer in it, and each stein weighs about 1.2kg (we 'acquired' a couple and weighed them at home). So these are some tough ladies. The beer is purposely brewed just for the festival, it has no preservatives and tastes very good. The beers alcohol content is about 6-7%, but even for non-hardcore drinkers like Carmen and myself, we found it extremely easy to drink.

After we had quenched our initial thirst with our new mates, we meet some Ozzies, some newly drunk Japanese tourists and some locals. The Germanys spoke a little English, and we learnt some new phrases, like 'mein lederhosen ist kaput', 'Shiezen hausen', 'Schlumpa'. The meanings of the last two we will leave up to the read to find the meaning although we might have the spelling completely wrong. The opening day, was very much a Germany festival, with almost everyone wearing their traditional lederhosen, and outfits. We felt like we had turned up to a fancy dress party and we were the only ones not dressed up. It was very cool to see, just made us feel underdressed.

Apart from the 13 beer tents, there is a wine tent and a number of schnapps bars for those not included to drink beer. There were numerous food outlets, we became regular visitors to the chicken outlet which served up roasted 1/2 chickens, and vendors which sold chocolate covered fruit. There is also a whole fair ground with carnival rides attached. All the rides putting New Zealand ones to shame, all going very fast, obviously trying to bring those recently downed steins back up. Another very big Germany speciality is the pretzel, they are big, taste great and are cheap.

At any event where the sole purpose is to serve large quantities of beer, it has its casualties. There was a constant stream of medics coming in and out of the grounds, people passed out of the banks, the odd person throwing up, many stumbling around. It all made the atmosphere.

As the days turned into evenings, and people had a few more drinks, people started getting on the tables tops and getting down with the local 'Oompah' bands - very cool atmospheres. Every third or fourth song is the Oktoberfest drinking song, we don't know what it translates to, but you hear it all the time and it ends with a big skull of beer.

Ein prozit, Ein Prozit
Der Gamoot Leek Kite
Ein prozit, Ein Prozit
Der Gamoot Leek Kite
Ein, Swei, Drei, Sufra...PROST!!

With such events, everyone wants a souvenir, and a free one is better than a bought one, so as such, after a few drinks everyone thinks it is a good idea to try and leave the festival with a stein (or two, or three). What we noticed was all the signs saying 'do not steal the steins' were in English. Apparently there is very little crime in Germany/Austria and everyone leave things unlocked (our chalet had no locks on any of the doors). Anyway, we and most of our bus managed to get a souvenir, and one girl got 3, got arrested and went to jail for a few hours. A good laugh all round :+)

See the other Oktoberfest pictures here

The Tyrol area in Austria was stunning and reminded me of Queenstown a lot (yes it did make me a little bit homesick). First stop was Kitzbuhel, the town where ski-ing was invented. It now has over 150km of ski runs - pity we were there in the summer. This was definitely a town of money - the shops that were open all looked very expensive, and the houses and chalets were amazing. While the rest of the crowd went up the gondola for a 3 course meal (yup, just like Queenstown, but red gondolas), Aaron and I and a few others went for a stroll around town and a leisurely lunch in the sun.

Next it was off to St Johann for a summer toboggan run, enduring about three or four 3-point-turns on the way. Now, our bus driver and guides were pretty cool, but we did seem to manage to get lost a lot of times, resulting in many insults from the bus-load of travellers. Good thing our bus driver was a pro when it came to stopping traffic going in both directions in order to pull a U-ey.

The toboggan was great fun and a lot bigger than I expected, but I think I got more entertainment out of watching the fellow passengers get far too brave and wipe out on the way, and then have to walk the rest of the way down the hill. Dangerous Dave from our bus even got really brave and decided that clothes should be optional for the ride - not a pretty sight, but one that was to be repeated on the bus-ride home after the party that night...

PP Travel arranged a BBQ for that evening in a marque just out of St Johann. Upon arrival, Aaron got out the frisbee, and we managed to get a good group of us out there chilling out outside - even managed to invent a new game frisbee/soccer/netball. Everyone was pretty shattered after 3 late nights already and being on the go all day, but as the night progressed, everyone had a few more drinks - we had a fantastic time. Then on the way home, the bus was a definite pary atmosphere.

The day after the opening of Oktoberfest, we headed off to see something completely different at Dachau Concentration Camp. The camp is now a memorial site and although it isn't complete, you get the general idea of what the layout would've been. The sign at entrance of the grounds (which would've been the entrance used by the prisoners) translates to 'work makes free', giving those admitted a false hope for the future.

It was set up in 1933, only a few weeks after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor as a camp for political prisoners, and all later camps were modelled from this one. The photos and video footage in the museum showed horrific images of over-crowding, starvation and death. The overcrowding of the barracks (which are completely gone, with only the foundations remaining) are a strong example of the terrible conditions, originally designed to accomodate 200 prisoners in each of the 30 buildings, up to 2000 prisoners resided in each. The sick bays also housed death chambers and areas for medical experiments.

The most sobering parts for me were the crematorium and gas chambers. The crematorium had to be built as the number of deaths was to high to send the victims to other camps to be cremated, however the photos of bodies outside show that these onsite furnaces could not deal with demand either. The room immediately before the crematorium was the gas chamber which was built for mass extermination, however for some reason (that no-one seems to know) it was never used. The sign above the door translates to 'shower-bath' and the room houses drains in the floor and shower nozzles in the ceiling.

The prisoners were liberated in 1943 by American troops, but many did not make it through the last few days under SS men command. Records show that over 200,000 people were held prisoners and over 43,000 died, however it is thought that the numbers were much greater as not all prisoners were recorded.

Austrian Chalet
Our bus trip took us from London to Dover (White cliffs of Dove photo), on the ferry to France, across France, through Belgium, through Germany, and finally 20 hours later we were at our chalet in Austria. Although the place was a little run down, it was at a perfect location, on the outskirts of a small skiing village, on a glacial feed lake. The other chalets in the valley looked very flash. Every morning there was a heavy mist which would hang over the lake until about 9-10am when the sun would burn it off. The breakfast was simple, consisting of rolls, with cheese and ham slices. The country side was covered in plump cows with bi cow bells, ringing as they walked and eat.


Party Bus
The bus had an on board bar, which turned the confined aisles into a bit of a dance floor. This was of course a nightly event.

Munich
On a day trip around Munich, we went the Haufbrau Haus (house), it is the only permanent Beer Hall, serving steins all year round. What it is most famous for is being the starting place of the Nazi party. Hitler and his party members started planning the party in this building in the 1920's before he came to power. As all tourists do, we also had a look at the Glockenspiel, an old clock which have little puppets doings a play when it goes off.

We went to a live performance of Romeo and Juliet today at Shakespears Globe. It was very good, and managed to gain my full attention for 3 hours. For a Sunday matin'ee, it was surprising full. A full house in fact. So another touristy thing you couldn't do at home, ticked off the list.

There were a few other things that happened in Spain that we should sum up before getting onto other trips.

L’Hemispheric, L’Aquarium and La Ciutat
This was a good two days spent at an aquarium, an Imax hemisphere planetarium and museum of science and art. It is all in one complex, is very new and very impressive. The aquarium is the best past of the complex, with lots of walk through tunnels, strange and colorfull fish, and a dolphin show. Not much else to say, and as there are no photos for the other bits in this entry I will put some pictures up and spread them out.

Hotel of Doom
On our last night in Valencia, we planned on going to Tarragona, home of a water park. We arranged for the Hotel (Expo – Valencia) to give us a wake up call at 6:30 so we could catch a bus. I woke up, seeing some sun rays peaking around the curtains and we shot up realising it was about 8:30. Storming down to reception, I had a wee ‘discussion’ with the receptionist, in front of quite a full reception area. I got no explanation, no apology.. very grumpy, we packed and went down to settle the bill and find new transport. I demanded they deduct the cost of the missed bus tickets; they wouldn’t budge so we walked out without paying. An email or two, we managed to get the cost of the train ticket back out of them and have paid the remaining balance. The day turned out to be a flop, we couldn’t get a train until midday, so basically went straight through to Barcelona.

PickPocket
Upon returning to Barcelona, I was striding ahead through the underground towards our platform with the pack while Carmen was strolling along behind with the backpack. Carmen, heard the sound of the zip on her backpack (heard, but didn’t feel a thing) and whipped around to see a middle aged woman disappearing. It was quite a shock, it wasn’t crowded, and there was only the three of us in this particular tunnel at the time. The bag was now wide open, a quick check confirmed nothing was missing and we placed our small padlocks on the packs to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

Home Time
Final few days we strolled around the streets, bought some souvenirs and went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea. Then flew home via Switzerland again.