Biergartens and more biergartens

Peter woke up with an Oktoberfest hangover and I woke up wondering where we would drink our first weissbier and start farting our way through the city.

We decided to head over to the Hofbrauhaus and were again faced with a cluster of people, all of whom wanted entry. In a weird twist of fate, a large group was being fed through the cluster in a conga line and we joined their line and made our way to the front of the cluster of people.

We were obviously not with this group, so we were stopped by security but then let into the building less than five minutes later.

We secured two seats in the outdoor beer garden and began our daily task of drinking and people watching. I immediately noticed a table of four 21-year old blonde German girls sitting behind Peter. They looked so cute in their dirndl dresses and braided hair.

To some extent, they were a tourist attraction themselves. People were taking photos of them and it was clear that several tables of men were vying for their attention. They ignored it all, even when the table of Italians started tossing bits of pretzels at the table of girls.

We left the Hofbrauhaus around 3pm and people were already visibly intoxicated. For example, there were two young guys (maybe 17) in the alley. One was sitting on the cobblestone preparing to puke and the other wanted the soon-to-be-puker to get up but the soon-to-be-puker could not stand by himself.

So, the standing guy grabbed the soon-to-be-puker’s arm and started dragging him across the cobblestone and back toward the Hofbrauhaus. I’ve never seen anything like this and laughed along with the other 20 people spectating.

As promised, we ate Mexican for dinner at a little restaurant called La Hacienda. The food and the 5€ mojitos were a nice change from sausage, potatoes, and beer.

After dinner, we went to the Augustiner biergarten. With 5,000 seats, it is the third-largest beer garden in Munich and as with most beer gardens, guests are welcome to bring their own food.

While enjoying our beers, we marveled at another German engineering feat – the empty glasses truck. The truck returned to its depot with a full load of empty glasses every five minutes. The biergarten was only about 15 percent occupied, so the number of empty glasses being transported to the depot was a bit surprising.