Munich

Don't ever let anyone tell you that London is only two hours from anywhere else in Europe. It takes two hours just to get from London to the bloody airport, for one thing. And sure, the air ticket itself may be cheap, but once they've factored in the departure tax, booking fee, baggage fee, insurance, oxygen fee and fee for wasting the pilots' and cabin crew's time, you're carrying much less weight in your wallet. Don't even think about asking for a beer either: it'd be cheaper to bring your own microbrewery on board and make one yourself.

That I made it to this cheap hotel room in Augsburg without incident is a surprise even to me. I left the flat in London at 2am. Twelve hours later, I'm a tortured and broken man. “Get your party hat on”, urges Steve. With a sigh of resignation, I shuffle to the edge of the bed, reach down into my bag on the floor, and retrieve a flask of vodka.

London is about the same distance from Munich as Auckland is from Christchurch. It just seems longer, because to get there I had to take a train to Stansted airport, a plane to Salzburg airport, a bus to Salzburg train station, a train to Munich, and another train to Augsburg, where we are staying. There's no telling where I might've ended up should I have fallen asleep and failed to successfully negotiate any leg of the journey: Leeds, Madrid, Oslo, Istanbul, Vladisvostok. More likely that I'd just have been woken up by a conductor for paying insufficient fare, got turfed off the train and ended up smoking crack in a gutter with Amy Winehouse.

I spent the train trip from to Victoria station to Stansted desperately fighting off sleep and the unenviable fate of waking up at the end of the line in some inbred village in Norfolk. Sitting across the aisle from me was a West Indian man reading from a large, leather-bound bible, mouthing the words as he read, fidgeting and occasionally jolting upright in his seat, as if he could feel Jesus deep inside him and he wasn't too happy about being in there. Further stimulation came in the form of the loud conversation between a self-absorbed middle-aged American woman and three younger travel companions a few seats down. Her dark sunglasses and a garish orange dress would have been more appropriate on Sunset Boulevard than Tottenham Hale.
“Wow, yeah, look at that broken toenail!”, she announced publicly, holding her foot aloft to indicate to all present that she was wearing jandals on a London metropolitan train at three o'clock in the morning. “I wonder when that happened. That's totally nasty!”

At one stage the train came to a complete halt in a paddock in the middle of nowhere, as trains are wont to do England. It must be a new phenomenon, because I don't remember this sort of thing happening on Thomas The Tank Engine. I peered out the window, expecting perhaps to see the driver urinating against a tree, but all I could see was nothing. An uneasy silence prevailed for a while, then the PA system crackled to life. “Sorry about that delay”, said the driver, pausing briefly to zip up. “Let's get going again, shall we?”. Yes, let's. Some of us have a plane to catch, you know.

The rest of the journey neatly blurred into one long and forgettable experience, during which I repeatedly told myself that it was all going to be worth it because tonight, I'm going to be at Oktoberfest, and I'm going to get wasted and eat hot dogs with half a million drunk Germans. I'm on the train back into Munich now with Steve, a uni friend whose travel plans have converged with mine for the next two evenings. The train is loaded with expectant partygoers – many dressed in traditional German garb – exhibiting the customary European behaviour of drinking heavily on public transport. It makes sense from a responsible drinking point of view: after all, you're much less likely to drunkenly stagger in front of a bus or a train if you're already on a bus or a train. Public transport is probably the safest place to be when you're drinking. I'm told that the public outpouring of grief was all-encompassing in London when they banned drinking on the tube a coupe of months back. Prominent community members from all walks of life descended into the massive tube party that broke out the day before the ban came into effect, their gleaming faces faithfully reproduced on the back pages of scandal rags all over town the following day. It was a poignant reminder of the power alcohol has to unite and galvanise a people in the face of adversity. I think people often lose sight of that.

A brief while later, we emerge into Theresienwiese, a vast public space just south of the city centre. For a sixteen day period every autumn, it's transformed into a 420-acre wonderland where the Germanic ideals of order and stifling discipline are rejected, and joy and merriment predominates. We wander in child-like excitement down a vast central promenade, lined with food and candy stalls, carousels, ferris wheels, and of course, enormous drinking houses. Far from being an adults-only debauch, we're surprised to see a large number of families in attendance, lapping up the weak autumn sun and arguing with their children about which ride to go on next. It's like a giant amusement park with beer tents.

This whole scene makes about as much sense to us as a nun in a German brothel. We'd been planning to hook up with another uni mate – also called Steve, who grew up in Frankfurt and is a seasoned Oktoberfest veteran – but he is missing, presumed passed out in a gutter somewhere. Naïve and rudderless without him, we walk into one of the massive tents and are overcome by the sheer size, noise and volume of people within the giant structure. Beer wenches push hurriedly past us with frothy steins of beer and huge plates of roast chicken. At long tables, thousands upon thousands of drinkers are merrily clinking their steins together and singing along to the polka band. We retreat to an outside table, where we find room to sit next to a group of of lesbian caterers from Frankfurt. In a heartbeat a waiter appears to place a stein in front of each of us and make off with a small fortune of cash in return.
“So, you are coming from America?”, asks one of the caterers in a stern German tone.
“No, New Zealand”.
“Ahhh, Neeuseeland. And how long are you making holidays in Munich?”
We're just here for the two nights, which I'm told is about the perfect duration for first-time Oktoberfesters. Any more than two and you risk leaving in an ambulance, or worse.
“So, when we are drinking at Oktoberfest, we say, 'prost!'”, she continues. Just to demonstrate, her companions roar “prost!” and clink their hefty steins together at a central point in the table. As a rule, this happens about every thirty seconds, and more often than that if someone happens to tell a funny joke or a fresh round of beers arrive. Our steins smash together with tremendous force, threatening to send enormous missiles of shattered glass in every direction should they connect too enthusiastically, and it takes some training not to flinch with each new bout of glass-clinking.

The lesbian caterers depart for a different tent and are swiftly replaced by a group of paralytic Aussie boys on their gap year. They introduce themselves as Baz, Daz, Gaz, Waz, Faz, and I forget the sixth guy's name. They've been here for a week and it really shows. Their already questionable mental capacities have been compromised by the ongoing systemic brain cell destruction and recovery operations being waged in the space between their ears. They're all still coherent enough to converse at length – amongst each other, though we're clearly expected to listen in – about the various girls they've shagged, stuff they've nicked, and fights they've started and then run away from, since arriving in Munich. This is with the notable exception of one young man, who's slumped forward on his seat, staring at his shoes, looking distinctly as if the contents of his stomach might not be long for this world.
“Fuck, that guy's totally gonna spew”, says Steve matter-of-factly, gesturing in his direction. “Surely. He's looking pretty average. Ahhh yes, there he goes”.

A security guard strolls over to inspect the young man, who half-heartedly wipes the residual dribble and mucus off his chin while trying to shovel gravel over the vomit with his shoes. “He's alright, he's alright!”, the boys protest in unison, and after a considerable period of glaring, the guard decides to leave him be. One of his mates – possibly Gaz – returns with a stein full of water for his fallen comrade. “You better fuckin' drink that”, he growls”, that cost me six fuckin' Euro”. He tentatively grasps the stein and takes a placatory sip, but it's all too much for him and he's soon slumped forward helplessly again.

I get talking to Daz, who is the ring-leader, or least the most lucid member of the group. Hailing from Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches, he's on his way home for the summer, where he looks forward to “hanging out and doing some surfing, maybe looking for a job, I dunno”. I ask him what else there is to do for fun at this place, other than drinking.
“That”, he says, pointing up at a towering fairground ride that makes me feel nauseous just looking at it. It's one of those souped-up roto-drop things in which the passengers sit upright in a compartment with their feet dangling and are lifted to an ungodly height, then are swung, inverted and twisted every which way at sickening speeds for what seems like an eternity before being lowered to the ground. Daz turns to his mates and says, “well boys, are we ready for it?”.

He must be joking. They're not seriously going to go on that ride in the state they're in?
“Let's do it boys!”. Now they're all firing each other up, slapping each other and yelling obscene motivational slogans. Even their violently-ill companion has suddenly sprung to life, chopping the rest of his water and jumping enthusiastically to his feet. Then they're off in the direction of the horrid machine, and the inevitable vomiting and disaster that is to follow.
“Nice to meet you, Max”, says Daz. “Tell ya what, if I hit your this table with a chunder from up there, you owe me a beer. Fair cop?”
I agree to this. My money is fairly safe. It'd require a good 50 metre horizontal spew - not entirely out of the realms of possibility for anyone who has seen Guest House Paradiso - but he'll never find me again amongst the masses of drunken antipodeans.

Steve and I tuck into a half-chicken and a massive novelty pretzel each, washed down with another smooth, crisp lager. Now we're joined by two even drunker Aussies. These two are a bit older and down to earth, though no less loud or obnoxious. One of them, whose name I believe is Mark, notes my sympathetic face and thus begins laying all his girl troubles on me.
“The, the thing is mate, Julie, she fuckin' loves me and she knows it but I dunno, farrrk”, he confides, grappling for words like a town drunk grapples for another bottle of rum from the top shelf. “Listen mate, can I borrow ya phone? I gotta, I gotta text Julie, I gotta text her, mate”.

I willingly oblige, if only because he seems a nice guy and I'd be happy going home knowing he'd got his end away and I was to thank for it. He takes ten minutes to send the text, and another ten minutes to wait in tense silence for a reply.
“Fark it mate, she's not gonna call! Fark it! Fark come on Taz, we'll go find some other sheilas”. And off they go again.

It's getting late now and I'm tired and drunk, so we decide to call it a night. This was always just going to be a warm up night, a dress rehearsal for the debauchery that is sure to come floating our way tomorrow. For the umpteenth time today I find myself desperately fighting off sleep on the train, knowing even one moment of resting my eyes is likely to result in us waking up in Cologne or Stuttgart. Back in Augsburg, we're just negotiating our way past a man vomiting against a lampost while his mate pats him on the back and issues word of encouragement when my phone rings. It's Julie.

“Hi, this is Julie. Are you Mark's friend?”
“Who?”
“Mark? You're Mark's friend, right?”
“Oh, yep right, right I am”.
“Do you know where Mark is?”
“Well last time I saw him he was at the Hacker-Pschorr tent, but um, nah no idea where he is now. He really fuckin' loves you, you know”.
“I know! I love him too. Where is he?”
“Look I really don't know. I've gone home”.
“I've gotta find him!”
“You'll find him. Don't worry. You'll be fine. Good night Julie, it was nice talking to you”.

Well Julie, if you did find Mark, we're all rooting for you and would love to know how it went. Answers on the back of a postcard please to Max, PO Box 69, Queenstown, New Zealand.

***

Oktoberfest is a statistical wet dream for numbers men such as myself who enjoy boring chicks at parties with totally useless and unimportant information about the world. It's impressive enough that the festival attracts over 6.2 million people in less than three weeks, or that at any given time there is enough seating room within the various tents for 100,000 people. Naturally the scale of the amenities is enormous: there are 980 seated toilets and 878 metres of wall urinals, almost the equivalent overall length to three Sky Towers lying on their sides. Little wonder the demand for the toilets is so high, considering that in 2007, Oktoberfest attendees munched their way through 58,446 pork knuckles, 284,506 pork sausages, 38,650 kilograms of fish, 521,872 chickens, and 104 oxen. Which they gleefully washed down with – wait for it – 6,940,600 litres of beer. Today, Steve and I will be doing our utmost to ensure that 2007 figure is bested, although our best efforts are likely to amount to little more than a drop in a delicious, malty, 6% abv ocean.

The train to Munich is once again loaded with hungover and still-drinking festival goers. We're stuck in the entry compartment of one of the carriages, spluttering in a noxious cloud of unchecked body odour and beery breath, while the refreshments man impatiently tries to force his cart back and forth through the scrum of unruly drinkers. In planning my drinking itinerary for the day, my mind keeps drifting back to the thought of the much-feted Hofbrau tent. Whether by design or accident, this mammoth tent – which measures half a hectare inside and can accommodate 9,992 drinkers at one time – has become the staging point for acts of Antipodean silliness and shenanigans so depraved that it makes The Church in London seem like a Fleetwood Mac concert in the Dannevirke civic auditorium.

“Don't go in there unless you want to be pissed on, shat on, or have to get your dick out in front of hundreds of people”, one acquaintance warned me before I left New Zealand. I laughed this advice off, surmising that he'd probably just suffered a one-off bad experience, but every other Oktoberfest veteran with whom I subsequently spoke was to corroborate his advice. By all accounts, the sight of girls squatting to piss under tables, total strangers projectile vomiting on you, and snap “rate my boner” competitions are all the norm, rather than the exception, within the seedy confines of the Hofbrau tent. I can't wait to see it for myself.

What's impressive about Oktoberfest is the manner in which all the beef-fuelled skulduggery is neatly contained within the cavernous tents. Outside, a wholesome carnival atmosphere prevails with only the occasional bleary-eyed, wild-haired drunkard providing any hint of what's transpiring within the bowels of the event. Shellshocked from our harrowing train ride, the four of us take a leisurely stroll down the main strip, revelling in the relatively unsullied autumn air.

Steve and I have devised a plan which, if successful, will not result in us consuming herculean amounts of local beer without being ruined by sunset, as has been predicted by the girls. As a rule of thumb, we're going to one meat-flavoured item of food between even stein we consume and pace ourselves appropriately so as to avoid a dinnertime coma. A stall selling half-metre long frankfurters seems the ideal starting point for the venture. Now, I know that no one enjoys hearing other people brag about how drunk they got at events they themselves did not attend; therefore I'll simply break my afternoon's activities down into a simple chronological list for you. Hot dog, beer stein, wienerschnitzel, beer stein, roast ox sandwich, beer stein, stewed pork sandwich, beer stein, hot dog, beer stein, beer stein.

It's well after nine o'clock and we're coming towards the end of a long, hard day when we finally pluck up the courage to brave the shit-slinging mayhem of the Hofbrau tent. In actual fact, it turns out to be much like every other tent we've been in today: gigantic, noisy, and full of drunks swaying in approximate rhythm to the brass band. This is the only tent that doesn't require patrons to be seated at a table before they can order, so we flag down a passing beer wench and within moments are sipping from our seventh steins of the evening. Apart from the occasional metallic twang of an Aussie accent, there's little evidence that is an antipodean-flavoured tent: I keep expecting the brass band to swing into a cover version of “Land Down Under” or “Slice of Heaven” but they continue to stick to their well-rehearsed repertoire of jaunty Teutonic folk classics. Da, da, da-da da da da daaa, go the horns, and the German drinkers swing their beer glasses back and forth, stopping every thirteen seconds or so to yell “prost!” and smash their glass into their neighbour's as hard as they can. Occasionally though, I pick up the faint background noise of some of my countrymen in distant corners of the tent, starting “Get it down ya” chants and singing – or attempting to sing – a selection of favourites straight out of Nature's Best Volume I.

There's something about being removed from our homeland that gives Kiwis an insatiable urge to share their singing voice with the world. Just ask anyone who's witnessed a Waitangi Day pub crawl and remembered to tell the tale. In New Zealand, there's only one line from one song that a Kiwi will ever dare sing in public – in fact I'm convinced that at least half of the crowd at any given one-day cricket game only show up to yell “I don't know-oh-oh-oh why does love do this to me?” into the camera – but on foreign soil it's a different story. Split Enz, The Exponents, The Dudes, Dragon, Shihad, Max Merritt & The Meteors – all are ground-breaking acts of our time whose musical mastery must be disseminated to the unenlightened overseas masses, preferably by a pack of shitfaced tone-deaf animals who back home would consider any public singing display to be solely the realm of soccer fans and homosexuals.

Me, I'm no exception to this rule. Get seven steins in me and I'll sing anything, anywhere, any time, as the good folk of Munich are currently discovering to their detriment. We've left the Oktoberfest grounds now and are following the crowd back towards the train station. It's at this point that I decide the elderly folk in front of us would like to be introduced to the feel-good tones of “I'll Say Goodbye”. The men are so immune to it all that they barely give me a second glance as I skip past. One of them mutters something under his breath to his mate – probably “fucking Canadians”, or something like that – but there's appreciation or indication that they'll be ducking down the CD store first thing on Monday moning to pick up a copy of the The Exponents Greatest Hits.

Next thing I know I'm on a train back to Augsburg, holding a can of beer I don't remember ever purchasing and engaging total strangers in heated debate of which I have similarly little recollection, although I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the war on many occasions. Steve is asleep in the seat next to me, Caroline is glaring at me with a stern motherly look that indicates she wants me to stop mentioning the war lest we inadvertently cause another one, and just about everyone else on the train is either passed out or singing a capella renditions of the same polka songs they've heard the brass band play a hundred times already today. The walk from the station to the hotel is barely half a kilometre but it takes the best part of twenty minutes to negotiate. I swear the same guy from last night is vomiting against the same lampost outside the hotel (some sort of territory marking ritual perhaps), but there's a good chance my mind is playing tricks on me. Must be all the hectic travel yesterday catching up with me.

Yeah, the hectic travel, that's definitely what it is.