Oktoberfest!

I finally made it to Munich! Jen and I arrived Friday night at Glenn and Silvia’s home at around 8:00pm. The thing is, though – we left Paris Thursday night at midnight. So it took just about 20 hours to get here which was longer than it took me to get from Dallas to Paris. Crazy stuff.
Amazingly it didn’t cost us a think to travel the 900km to get here. Our first ride took us more than half way from Paris to Strasbourg, on the French/German border. Claire and Stefane, a great couple who hosted me last time I was here, gave me and Jen the ride. They just happened to be visiting friends and family in Paris at the time and leaving when we were wanting to go. The only catch was that we left at midnight.
The ride to Strasbourg seemed to take forever. There was a lot of construction going on so we had to take loads of detours. Therefore the ride that should have taken around 4 or so hours took double the time. No worries, though. At least I was able to sleep little bits here and there.
Saying goodbye to Claire and Stephane in Kehl, just across the border in Germany, we dropped inside a convenience store to get supplies to make our hitching sign. We wrote simply “M – Oktoberfest!” on one sign and “Bitte!” on another so we both held one. “M” is the german sign for Munich while Bitte means please.
Within about 20 minutes a trucker (or a “lorry” driver for you UK english speaking folk) stopped for us. Truckers are the best rides! We were exhausted and here a truck stops with two beds in the cab for us to lay out on. What a treat!
He had to pick up a load a little out of the way so the ride took longer but it was worth it. The drivers was also SUPER strange and had creepy stories to tell but overall he was a really nice guy. He drove us all the way into Munich and apologized profusely for not being able to drop us off at the door of the house we were staying in. What a nice guy – even if he was more than a little strange.
So we finally made it. Oktoberfest is super crouded on the weekends so we’ve decided to hit it hard tomorrow around lunch time. We walked through it a bit today and checked out all the food, beer, and gobs of people. Tomorrow sounds like it will be a lot better to get around. We’re both really looking forward to it.
Tch