Karl B

Day two in Munich:

I had set my alarm for 6:30am but I was too cold to get up so I went back to sleep…till I got a text from Kylie at 7:30 saying they were on the shuttle. After scoffing down some breakfast (mmm, baked beans and scrambled eggs)  I jumped on the shuttle to Oktoberfest and the beer halls. I had to walk for a good 10-15 minutes to find the Hofen Brau tent which is predominantly populated by Aussies and Kiwis. Once I had found the tent I had to wait at least an hour and try multiple entrances to get in, luckily the others had saved me a seat.

The first keg of Oktoberfest is not tapped until noon so we waited 2-3 hours in there talking to some randoms, among other, three girls Mel, Lyndia and Jess and a guy called Karl.

Between noon and three the tent raved, as the keg got tapped people went off and then again as people drunk more and more the volume went up.

The seats we were sitting at were reserved for 3:00pm so at about 10 past the security pretty much bodily removed us, not allowing us to even move to other friends tables or the pig pen.

NB: The HofenBrau tent is somewhat notorious. In all tents you have to be seated to be served beer, in the HB tent and ONLY the HB tent there is an exception, a standing area in the centre which you will still be served beer in. The catch is that people who go in there will have their underwear ripped off (by the people already in the centre), boxers/jocks for guys and bras for girls, and all the underwear gets thrown up onto a pig thing suspended from the ceiling.

The rest of the day pretty much went by in a blur as I was pretty blotted by the time we got kicked out, I fell asleep on a hill outside the tent for 45 minutes before finding some food and walking back to the PP shuttle pick up point.

After getting back to the camp by taxi (as the shuttle bus didn’t turn up for over the hour) with Kat and Kathryn, two chicks from Sydney, and the others we drunk a little then went to bed.

So I’m on the coach on my way back to London from Munich. From the beer, the cold and the awesome party environment.

Looking back I can definitely say I enjoyed it. The atmosphere in the HB (Hofenbrau) tent was amazing and just getting out there and talking to random people was fun. I only wish I had gone on the 7 or 9 day version as with the travel included 5 days just was NOT enough time…and I found this really great chick to talk to…

The detailed version.

We departed from the Embankment at ~1:00pm on Thursday (18th Sept), from there we drove to the port of Dover and got on the ferry to Calais. Once on the other side of the channel our coach leader busted out the alcohol and the whole coach proceeded to get drunk.

I’ve said in my previous rantings that I was not prepared for flights of 8-10 hours in length, as I was not prepared for those I was definitely not ready for a mammoth 18 hour bus ride, everyone arrived at the other end tired and smelly.

The day we arrived a group of us caught the U-Bahn to Marienplatz which is the centre of town and from there Gareth, Chantel, Kylie and myself took a bicycle tour around the city called “Lenny’s free bicycle tour”. On initially hearing that it would be 4 hours we were a bit iffy but it really was worth it (and I’d recommend it to everyone).

Lenny took us on a very leasurely paced ride around central Munich and told us a little of its past. There was the founding and various wars fought then he got onto the more recent history of WWI/WWII and Adolph. After that we cycled through a very large park (part of which was nudist) and stopped at a beer garden for some beer, food and more history before stopping at a surf wave in the middle of the city. At the end I tipped Lenny 12 euro which is half the price of “Mikes Bike Tour”. As a side note there were a LOT of bike tours all going to exactly the same place.

City surf

The first night I pretty much froze in my tent. I had a self inflating mattress, sleeping bag, jeans, shirt, thin woolen jersy and I was still cold. In the middle of the night I tied a long sleeve shirt around my head to keep my body insulated and that seemed to work to some extent to keep me warm. And so ended day one in Munich.

I found the Heathrow airport far less intimidating that the Dubai one, it was all good and easy.

That said…The customs line at heathrow was insanely long, at a guess I’d say it must have taken 20+ minutes to get through it, there was also an annoying message playing advising that due to new tighter security policies the lines/waits would be longer, which just really made waiting there even more annoying.

After I got my baggage I headed down to the underground, picked up an Oystercard and put £20 on it. Then walked a few miles down to the Piccadilly line platform. I have to say getting on at Heathrow was a nice place to start the tube experience as it was pretty much empty and gave me time to look at the diagram for the line. The whole being empty thing didn’t last long, as it was rush hour (8am) more and more and more people got on I began to feel like a right prat because my suitcase took up to much space.

Following the instructions Chantel gave me I got off at Holborn (I didn’t think I was going to be able to for awhile as the train was so packed, luckily lots of other people got off there), followed the wall markers to the central line (east bound) and got onto the second which came past as the first was too full. From there getting off at Bethnal Green Station and walking to Jade and Chantel’s place was easy.

So the things I learnt about the tube that day:

• If it all possible, never take a suitcase onto the trains.
• Etiquette: People seemed quite curtious in terms of making space and letting people sit, which made me feel like even more of a prat.
• There are LOTs of attractive people on the trains. NB: There are lots of attractive people everywhere, NZ talent is lacking.
• People get very good at holding and reading a newspaper while standing.
• The tube is easy and I will have no problems getting around as long as I know my destination station. NB: If people can’t use the tubes after being on it once, they’re utter muppets, if you know your N, E, S,W you can navigate the tubes.

I don’t really have a whole lot to say about Dubai. It was 34 degrees celsius when  I arrived at midnight and 41+ during the day. I didn’t really do much because it was far too hot.

In the end I just ended up staying in the hotel for most of the day reading a book, watching TV or using the gym. I did go out for one touristy thing I had booked, driving over the sand dunes about an hour out of Dubai in land cruisers which was all good.

More Sand

Sand Dunes + Cars

I finally have time to sit down at a laptop (I still don’t have one unfortunately) and write out all my travel memoirs, I’ll make a post for each location. As a note, I am just transcribing what I wrote at the time.

So there are two things I can say I forgot to bring with me (on the first leg out of New Zealand), a book and sleeping pills.

In my attempt to sync up my body clock with Brunei time I stayed awake till 3:15am NZT, when I flew out, then tried to go to sleep so I would be rested when I arrived in Brunei at 9:30am (10 hours later). What I didn’t take into account is that is is almost impossible to get unbroken good sleep on a plane, hence me saying I forgot the sleeping pills.

The book would have been an alternative to sleeping pills. Being awake with nothing to do, which I did on the plane and what I am doing now in the transit lounge, is painful, though I did talk to three girls who have just been touring Europe and just arrived from Dubai.

The airport offers a tour of Brunei for people who have a 5+ hour stopover, it was a good way to use up some time (and act like a tourist) though it sounded like propaganda with at least 10% of the words coming out of the guides mouth being “the sultan”.

I had expected Brunei airport to be somewhat more impressive but now that I’ve heard that the country only had ~350,000 people I guess I can forgive it.

Anyway I’m starting to feel dizzy which can’t be a good sign so I’m going to kip out out on the surprisingly comfortable airport chairs.

NB1: After writing that I saw Dominic, and I had a picture taken to prove it.

Dom and Karl in the Brunei airport

NB2: As of transposing this the Brunei chairs were the most comfortable ones I’ve slept on so far, they actually had fabric and cushions instead of being hard metal.

Edit 04/12/2008: I can now say I have slept in a fair few airports and I still stand by my original statement about the Brunei airport chairs.