Germany: Fussen & Munich

Caught about 7 or 8 trains from Interlaken to Fussen in southern Germany which is a hole and doesn't deserve its own post except I got to see mad King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein castle (Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland is based off it.) It was freezing cold and raining, the institution woops I mean hostel was full of school kids and nothing in town was open. Caught a train to Munich.

Munich's hostels booked out about a year ago because this is the opening week of Oktoberfest! So I'd organised to stay in the Thalkirchen camping ground with a company called 'Pillow' who provided tents and sleeping mats. Luckily Flick was camping too, but she was with the Topdeck company. The camping ground had thousands and thousands of tents from companies like Busabout, Contiki, PP Travel, Fanatics etc as well as people just camping by themselves, and it was a massive party! I'm sure there was confusion caused by rows and rows of identical tents in this tent city.

But I learnt camping without a sleeping bag in Munich autumn is COLD! I wore all my clothes, with a scarf wrapped around my head, and piled random things on top of me like bathers and dresses and was still freezing. Fail. People were complaining of the cold from inside their sleeping bags... b******s

The actual Oktoberfest grounds were completely different from what I expected! I'd just expected beer halls. But it was a real carnival with rollercoasters and ferris wheels, so many food stalls and souvenir & toy stalls, kids and families everywhere. Flick, her friend Pam who is now nannying in Istanbul, my tent mate Wendy from Sydney and myself went in early to line up to get a seat inside a beer hall, but it filled up so quickly we ended up sitting outside all day! We were so amazed at the strength of the bar girls who managed carrying 10 steins all at once when we struggled to lift one! Lots of girls were wearing the traditional durndl dresses (and lots were wearing skimpy Ebay equivalents) and the guys were in leiderhosen.

That night trying to get home was a nightmare... the subways were all full of blood and vomit from drunken injuries, there were smashed people leering and falling all over the place... it was gross and just ridiculous when they were all still in costume and looked like little boys. What made it worse was that when I printed my Ryanair e-ticket at an internet cafe on the way home, luckily Flick and Pam pointed out that Memingem airport is not Munich airport!! Thanks for making that obvious Ryanair! So that was almost a disaster, I would have gone to the wrong airport early the next morning. And Memingem is so much further away I realised I'd have to get up in the freezing cold and leave the campsite by 4am to get there. Yay. Good planning Jess (remember I rushed this booking the day I started Sail Croatia!) New rule for myself: no more early flights. You'd think I would have learnt this by now, but they suck!

Said bye to Flick who I will see next in Peru! And to Pam, who I'd just met but got along with really well, hopefully I will see her again one day if she ever comes back to Australia! Wendy gave me an extra jumper to sleep in but I still died. And I've blocked the freezing early morning debacle from my memory, but thanks to the girls I got to the correct airport on time for my flight to London.