'Prost' from Munchen!

Well we survived Oktoberfest!
The festival is absolutely amazing - so much bigger than we thought it would be......the park is massive and the beer tents alone seat 100,000 people. Then there are fairground rides covering the place - and they are proper rides that put the Disneyland in Hong Kong to shame! Full on rollercoasters, side shows, horror trains, log flumes, ferris wheels, carousels, and every type of food stall you can imagine. We were really lucky with the weather as it has been raining ever since Saturday but we had brilliant weather for the festival.
We had to try quite a few tents before we actually got let into one, then kept getting moved on as we couldnät get a seat, but you have to be in the seated area to be drinking. There we some pretty young ones three as the drinking age is only 16 over here! But it is a real family affair, people of alls ages are there enjoying themselves and all of the locals come dressed in their traditional costumes which really adds the the atmosphere. The first tent we were in was a real party tent, and the band were playing more modern songs, so people were up on tables singing.....kind of like the Seven's party without the rugby.
It was 1L steins all round - thats the only size you can get, at 9€ a stein it works out about the same price as NZ. The beer here is lovely - even Sara has been drinking only beer, its around the same price as water!
After enjoying a few rides we went into the traditional part of the festival, and the traditional tent was quite different. They had the traditional Oom Pah Pah band playing, whip crakcing, and all of the beer was served in ceramic instead of glass.
The train ride here was a different experience, we figured out the reservation system about half way through the trip and ended up sharing a seat with an Aussie. They have a full bar/cafe in one of the carts and you can just wander up and down as you please. They even have bar leaners in the bar area so you can enjoy a beer for the journey!
Sunday was quite a change in mood, when we woke up to find it was dreary, raining, and freezing we though it was fitting for our trip out to Dachau. Unfortunately we couldnä purchase and umbrella or raincoat as Bavaria is a Catholic state so everything is closed on a Sunday!
Our trip to Dachau was different, our tour didn't take us in a tour bus, but hearded 30 of us through public transport in the way of trains and buses to get there. It is only 30 mins out of the city, so an easy journey.
The place has been really well set up as a memorial and our tour guide had a fantastic knowledge of the material so it was a very graphic but interesting trip.
The camp is exactly how the concentration camps are depicted in the mvies - of course they were all modelled of Dachau which was the original, but we had no idea there were around 20,000 camps! The photos don' really show what some of the livinging conditions were like, the beds just open bunks that they all piled into - with a person dedicated to blowing a whistle every 30 minutes so they coulod all turn over together, as there was no room to turn over individually!
All of the original buildings that the inmates were kept in have been torn down as they were remodelled for the refugees after the war, but they have built some replicas, and all of the main building with the punishment rooms etc are all original - all really well preserved. It is an awful place, and some of the images are very graphic and disturbing, but it is a great way to ensure the horrors that happened in that time are never forgotten!
We headed to the Augustiner Biergarten which was recommended by a friend Logan made at Oktoberfest. They brew their own beer on site, and it is the oldest in Munich - 1348 (we think). The place is huge! Would probably seat around 2,000 people out in the garden and another few hundred inside. The garden creates a canopy of trees so it has the feel of being inside almost - but the trees create the surrounds. Really hard to describe as we have never been to anything else like it!
We finally managed to buy an umbrella this morning, so the trip to the train station should be a little more pleasant - catching the over night train to Amsterdam tonight so this is our last day in Germany, so for now Lebewohl.