Oktoberfest is finally here!!!

I had a pretty easy flight out of Dublin, and a relatively painless four train rides to get to Hannover. Though the ticket I printed out for my train ride had a few issues. I only glanced at it previously because I already knew the details. I had noticed it wasn't in English, but just assumed it was in Dutch. After looking closer when I got off the plane, I realized it wasn't in Dutch. I was told by a couple people it wasn't in any language, it was just gibberish. I ended up going to the train station and having them print me off an itinerary along with a handwritten note to the German train system that said my ticket was legit.

I got to Hannover and met Marlene and Malisa at the train station. I stayed with Marlene's family at their brand new house which is really nice. We went out to a cool club on my first night. I met a few German kids and had a few beers for only 2 euros each. I am still amazed at that price, incredibly cheap for a club with a cover. We made it on the last tram home, then spent the next couple of days exploring Hannover. We rode bikes around town a bunch and to the huge garden/park called Herrenhäuser Gärten. It is designed in a similar style as Versailles and was really impressive. We wandered through and I got some great pictures, plus I got to see the tallest fountain in Europe. Malisa and I walked over to it and saw that it was turned off. I was pretty disappointed, but we decided to eat our picnic lunch next to it anyway. I made some joke about waiting as long as it took for them to start the fountain, otherwise I was asking for a refund. An hour later, after we ate and chatted and were getting ready to leave, the fountain turned on! I'd say the thing was about 40 meters high, though now I am curious and just looked it up, apparently it is 82 meters tall!! Wow was I off. The following day we met up with one of the girls' friends, Linnea, and went pedal boating on the lake. I ate dinner the first few nights at Marlene's, then once at Malisa's place and once at Linnea's house. I ate some great German food and once again feel lucky to be taken care of so well!

Today was my last day here, and I took a day trip with the girls to Münster, where Malisa is going to Uni. We walked around the town, which was very pretty. There are lots of tree lined walking and bike paths, just like Hannover. Both cities are extremely bike friendly. Plus they both have really convenient and efficient public transportation, people can easily live here without a car. We ate dinner right next to the lake, then lost track of time and had to run 1km back to the train station so we wouldn't miss our train. It didn't matter in the end because Marlene forgot to write our connection down, so we went to the wrong stop and had to wait an hour for the right train! If you plan it well, it seems you should never have to wait more than 5 mins for a connection to take a train anywhere in Germany.

I am planning on meeting up with Cameron tomorrow in Munich. I am probably going to have to buy a tent as we are staying at a campsite on the outskirts of town and Cam's tent is small. Apparently I can find one for about 15 euros there, and just ditch it afterwards. I'm not sure what my plans are after Munich and have no idea how long I will stay there. Probably until I get tired of paying 8 euros for a beer or until my liver fails me, whichever comes first. I am thinking I would like to visit Austria afterwards, but we'll see. Probably won't get online in the next week or so unless I find an Internet Cafe or this campsite has WiFi (yeah right).

Thanks for the comments on my posts by the way!