Eventually the tents had to close for the night in order to prepare to open again at 9am the next day, so we had to
say our farewells again to our Contiki friends. Once that was done Marty and I promptly discovered we had well and
truly lost Chris at some point in the last few hours, so decided to start making our way home ourselves. After
stumbling around trying to find anything that resembled a train station, we found ourselves on a train headed
hopefully somewhere near our hostel, and were laughing at a drunk conversation we could hear going on behind us
between some very drunk Australian and some German girls. Exactly how long it took us to realise I don’t know, but
eventually we realised that the drunken Australian was none other than our very own, and once again we were
reunited with Chris. The rest of the trip home remains a bit of a blur, but photos indicate that we did go to a burger
king at some point, and that I had somehow managed to “borrow” a big glass stein from the beer grounds, which is
currently sitting next to me as I write this.
Knowing that we still had another six or seven days to spend drinking beer at Oktoberfest, we decided we would
have a rest day the next morning, spending it wandering around the city, doing all the touristy stuff we missed out
on the first time. Although we had said goodbye to a chunk of our Contiki, two of our friends still remained and they
joined us for most of our time here. Our next forage into the Oktoberfest grounds was very unsuccessful, with Chris
and Marty heading in with our tour group (we had finally reached the date of our Oktoberfest tour, which meant
accommodation with actual walls and a roof) some two hours before the tents opened, and Ellie and I leaving to
meet up with them about 5 minutes after the tents opened. What came next involved four hours of us two waiting
in the rain only to be told the tents were full and had been since they opened, so we decided to call it quits and go
back to our hostel. Obviously we were very disappointed to miss out on a day there, although Chris showing up an
hour or two later having lost both Marty and his wallet did provide us with some entertainment for the day. Not
wanting to make the same mistake as last time, our next trip in was at 6:30 in the morning with our tour group, and
after a few hours queuing we made it in. the extra two hours waiting was definitely worth it, as being inside the tent,
especially on a rainy day, completely made our Oktoberfest experience what it was. Although we had had plenty of
fun on our first trip in, we had been seated outside the whole time, which apart from being pretty cold, meant the
atmosphere was feeble compared to what we didn’t know was going on inside the tents at the time. The
atmosphere inside is unbelievable, with chants and cheers going on every two minutes, a German band blasting
festive music, and people “napping” on the tables almost everywhere.
Hvar
Eventually our stay in Munich was up, and it was time for Chris, Marty and I to leave Ellie and depart for Croatia. One
of my close friends in Sydney is from Croatia, so I’d wanted to visit for a while and more or less forced Chris into it.
Although all three of us loved the country, we decided if we were to go back, it would have to be at a sunnier time of
year, while peak tourist season was still on. Almost everywhere we went in Split and Hvar Island was deserted, which
although meant that service was excellent and the already cheap prices were even cheaper, it did make the
country’s famous nightlife pretty non-existent. That said, having just finished Oktoberfest, we were more than happy
to take it quiet for a while, and spend our time exploring. We were lucky enough to have the weather remai