I woke up somewhat early and hoofed it down to the tram stop with the needed accessorys in hand that being camera, umbrella and wallet pretty much, today was going to be a cool cloudy rainy sorta nasty day and it was a tuesday so I knew the fair was going to be totally dead, but I got my ticket from a vending machine and proceeded to take the tram to the main train station then got on the U bahn and it took me right inside the fair. And when I got there, just like I thought it was dead, horribly dead, but I went walking around for a bit taking pics and I rode rides I had missed the day before taking advantage of daytime deals, I believe the first ride I rode was Transformer a S&M Top Star Tour which I rode for like €1.50 ended up sitting waiting for more people, after not to long with me and like 4 other people they started up the ride and for €1.50 we all got our moneys worth, was a good 10 or so minute cycle with all the bells and whistles like bubbles and fog (usually at least in the US when you get a deal like a wristband, they omit all that stuff that costs them extra), so I was impressed and it gave a very good ride spinning us every which way. After that I walked over to Airwolf which of couse had no line and no people waiting to ride and the guy in the paybox said he'd rather not sell me a ticket as they need at least 15 people to run the ride and that could take some time and to come back later or he'd flag me down when I pass by, so I walked around some more taking all sorts of pics, had a few things to eat, Bratwurst and some Fries which are called Pommes over in Germany and every place advertised XXL pommes and I found the cheapest vendor, though I had in mind like an absolutely massive order of standard fries like a 5 gallon bucket of fries but in fact their idea of XXL pommes is fries that are like an inch thick and hugely long, they probably get like 4 fries out of a huge potato, though they do give a generous portion and of course they come buried under a good solid layer of Curry Ketchup though by this point in the trip I had conceeded that I cant avoid Curry so just eat it and hope the BO goes away soon after I get home, so it'd been a good hour or so and I headed back towards airwolf and still it handnt run that day and still no one there, me and the guy in the booth exchanged an Oh Well sort of look and I continued on to the Ferris Wheel which I rode and took all sorts of pics and it was pretty sweet.
After that I wandedred around some more and rode a few odds and ends continuiously checking back at Airwolf as Dammit I needed to ride a Mondial Inferno and this was my only chance, but eventually I noticed from like halfway across the fair that a group of 10 people or so were approaching the ride handing off loose articles to an apparant non rider so I made a dash to the ride and got to the pay booth and he said still not enough people but he'd give me my ticket and I can hang out on the ride til more people come along. So I got my token, went up the ramp, handed in my token, all that group went to one gondola so I went to the other and got a coveted end seat and I sat there while the guy in the booth got on the microphone and really started spieling to everyone and anyone who'd listen to him on the midway and after about 15-20 mins we had enough people to get the thing going, so pretty much I waited around 3.5 hours to ride this thing.
Also now it had stopped raining, but the ride hadnt run since probably pretty early the previously day and it'd been raining ever since, so this ride was immensely waterlogged. And it started and it did it's thing and it did end up being pretty amazing (wont do details, though I did expect more), but every time the ride moved buckets of waters came splashing down onto the gondola, he gave us a good long ride to try and drum up business as when the ride runs it draws a decent crowd of spectators, and every time anything happened it resulted in more water, when the ride was over everyone got off soaked to the bone. At this point I thanked the ride op and headed back to the midway and decided there werent enough people, now I'm soaked and it's cold out, I'm going back to the hotel for a while and I was hoping it'd be busier later in the day when people get off work and whatnot. So I went back to the train station and on the way I bought a pretzel the size of a bicycle tire and I got on the train, and went though the whole deal of getting back to the hotel, when I got back I changed clothes, ate my pretzel and watched TV for a few hours, around 5-6 or so and I went though getting back to the fairgrounds and got there to a light crowd, but still a crowd, so I knew I chose right, also it had stopped raining, seemingly for good. So I walked around took some night time pics and I believe I rode a ride or 3, but I was at a beer festival and I really wanted some beer, so I made a round of the exterior of the tents to see which one interested me the most, now I'm not the most social person so I was looking for a tent with some extra room inside, and perfably one with a minimum of vomit smeared on the pavement out front and finally I found one that seemed to fit the bill, half full and only one puddle out front(though it was of impressive and noteworthy size).
Accoring to my picture it was the Schwaben Brau tent, and it seemed to be noteworthy as they served Beer in Liter Steins rather than the traditional liter glass mugs, so I head in, sit down and a guy came up and took my order (one beer) and I took a few mins to look around, basically it's a midsize 5000 or so seat tent with a large stage in the middle with an even larger guy armed with an accordian on top of it and they were pumping out some traditional palka/german folk which was pretty good, excellent drinking music, and I noticed the atsmosphere in the tent was rather laid back, lots of locals sitting around having a beer and bullshitting with eachother, no one being rowdy or anything, seemed like a good time for some, but my beer arrived in a nice big beautiful foamy stein. This was my first fest beer, as in germany there are several beers but just one is served at festivals and it's brewed specially for the occasion, it's basically an easy drinking beer with about double the alcohol than normal beer, as the germans do know how to party and they have determined that Marzen Beer(what fest beer is called) facilitates that plan the best. So I start drinking my liter of beer which was really top notch, hard to compare it with any other beer you see in the US, but shockingly fast that liter was gone and Mike P was now in party mode, and this laid back tent just wouldnt do. So I headed out and rode Alpina Bahn cause it seemed like a good idea at the time to spend $$, also wandered around back and rode a few more rides including Circus Circus the Huss Magic which was way fun, and at this point I needed more beer and I was still in party mode, so I wandered around til I came to a good crowded heaving tent with a huge stage and more atrificial fog and lasers than you can shake a stick at and a medium amount of barf out front, it was the Zum Wasenwirt tent and it was serving Stuttgarter Brau Beer, it took a while to find a seat, probably 10 so mins til I found a good seat gorgeous busty girl in low cut dress comes over for my order and I order my beer, and again I look around and this tent was obviously the party tent nice and dark, lots of people, some really really drunk some causing trouble which a 7 or so foot tall good 300 lb bald white man called Security would go deal with using absolutely no finesse at all, the most common problem was people dancing on table tops, which is a no no, if you must do an ariel dance to have to do it on the bench, so mongo there would walk up to them, grab them by the belt yank them off the table onto the floor and drag them out of the tent kicking and screaming basically, was fun to watch but made a mental note to stay off the table
Also up on stage was some german band which seemed to cover alot of American Bands and they were damned good at it, they were cranking out AC/DC, Metallica, and other hard rock stuff along with the occasional German Rock Song, but anyways I get my beer in a traditional Dimpled Glass Liter Mug so this time i can actually see what it looks like, nice and dark red, and this beer was outright amazing, some of the best beer I've ever had in my life, and I've tried alot of different beers. And I'm really getting into this tent atsmosphere was amazing, and like my first beer at the other tent, this beer disappears suprisingly fast (especially for a €6 liter mug of beer), but at this point I was firmly wedged in party mode so I ordered another one and while playing magician I made it disappear so the time came for another one, and of course each time the beer girl got hotter and hotter and I cant say no to beer from a busty woman, so #3 comes and I decided I'd take my time and savor that one so that one took like 10 mins to get rid of, but at this point I was beyond party mode and on the border of being trashed after drinking 4 literes of double strength beer in about an hour and a half to 2 hours and also it wasnt to far off of closing time though I would have had enough time to have another but didnt want to make an ass of myself in some way shape or form, so I think I headed to the U bahn stop, did the whole getting back to the hotel thing, however that mile walk from the tram stop to the hotel was a rather long walk this time around, took a good hour and I watered just about every other lawn between the tram stop and hotel (In Germany that's totally legal, or at least not frowned upon), so I got back to the hotel and from what I remember there was this mysterious fridge in the stairway, like block half the stairway, at this point a mystery fridge seemed entertaining and there was beer inside, so I grabbed a few and headed back to the room, however the beer was Bitburger Beer (nasty bitter even when hammered), so I choked down part of one then walked across the hall to take a shower then passed out in bed til the next day.
Next up: Day 14 Skyline Park and Oktoberfest
