Frühlingsfest in München!

This past weekend I went to Frühlingsfest (Springfest) in Munich with a group of friends from my program.  I took a train with Jared, Eric (my Paris and Florence crew), Bailey, and Michael took a 2:14 train from Westbahnhof to the Munich Hauptbahnhof.  We got to Munich around 6:30ish and went straight to our hostel.  We stayed at the Meininger Youth Hostel, a great city pretty close to a S-Bahm line and the Frühlingsfest grounds.  It was definitely convenient for our purposes.  There were eighteen kids from IES in Munich that weekend, and (I think) we saw all of them!

Salzburg as seen on the train.

Frühlingsfest!!!!

Disney-themed carousal.

The Augustiner Bräu tent... we got here at about 2:30 PM on Saturday and got a prime table.
We also spent all night Friday here.

Me and Bailey before the party (German drinking songs) began!

He is holding 14 beers.  FOURTEEN BEERS.

PROST!

Zach got a little carried away.

Dancing queens Jared and Nick.

For Tommy - the Wildemaus!

Michael bought a vest at Humana (a secondhand shop) with Edelweiss on the buttons!

A lot of the girls bought dirndls, a traditional Austrian/German dress!

We got to the festival at 11AM (opening!) on Saturday and Eric and Jared played in these balls since there was no line!

PROST! means CHEERS! auf Deutsch.

Saint Paul’s Kirche in the background

Day 2 of Augustiner Bräu tent!

All the beer came from these ENORMOUS barrels

And another FOURTEEN!!

This kid chugged half a liter of beer while his friends lifted him up on a table.  Security even waited for him to finish before making him come down

Michael had an awesome time.

Sunday morning we decided to do some sightseeing and eating in downtown München.  Here is the Rathaus, which kiiiind of looks like the Wiener Rathaus!

No women and children allowed.

The HOFBRÄUHAUS!

This is only a half liter beer.  I find it kind of sad that I feel the need to say “only”.

My trip to München was my final trip outside Austria, and I loved every minute of it.  I was with great friends, ate great food, and drank great beer.  It’s currently Saturday morning in Vienna, and I’m finishing up an education paper due later today.  The paper is a reflection of my experience teaching and my time in Vienna, and it has me thinking about how unbelievably lucky I am to have gotten to go on all these amazing trips and study in this outstanding city.  I CANNOT believe I go home in a week.  This is the most bittersweet feeling in the entire world. Of course I’m so excited to see MY DOGS!!! and my family and Petey Parker and my friends, and eat amaaaazing food, but I have made incredible friends over the last four months that live all across the country, and I have no idea when I will see some of them again.  I’ll obviously also miss Vienna, and am currently making a bucket list of things I have to see/do before I go home.

Over the next week, I have 4 finals and a paper due (in 3 hours).  I’m not too worried about any of them, but still have to put some time studying!  Later today, our German class is going to Frau Summesberger’s house in Baden, so I will return to paper-writing.

Auf Wiedersehen!