Munich - Day One

We wake up at three am, drag our butts out of bed around three thirty, and creep down the stairs at four. Our shuttle should arrive any second. We wait, sitting surrounded by our bags in reception. Four fifteen rolls around. No shuttle. Four thirty strikes. No shuttle. By this stage both of us are getting nervous. Willy talks with the receptionist who proceeds to make half a dozen phone calls. Twenty to five and there is still no sign of the shuttle. We demand a taxi, to be paid for by the hotel as a replacement for the shuttle service that we paid them for. Five to five our taxi shows up. We pack our bags into the boot. The receptionist and taxi driver start arguing. I tell them that they can argue later, we have been waiting an hour and we have a plane to catch. That goes down like a lead balloon. Oops, forgot that as a woman here you should be seen and not heard. Oh it makes me so mad.

The taxi drives off at five. Willy and I sit in the back, relieved that we always build in a lot of spare time. Upon our arrival at the airport we go through two security checks, Willy gets a pat down, we check in fairly easily, and we eat the very worst Burger King known to man. Honestly the BK in Istanbul makes the BK at home look like fine dining, and it's SO expensive. Not that there are many options when it comes to airport food, and it's doubtful that any would be much better. There is a man three tables down from us who starts practicing his recorder. Who does that? At six am in a crowded airport food court. Eventually the guy who serves the Turkish ice cream tells him to cease and desist. I feel like hugging him.

The airport is teeming with people. Frustratingly all of their flight info boards are down. Unlike other airports who have staff members roaming the place to help poor confused tourists, there is none of that here and the only option is to stand in the nightmarishly long queue at the help desk. At this stage I leave Willy to visit the bathroom, there I enter hell. They are the single worst toilets of our entire trip, so, so filthy, and none have any paper. It's a testing morning.

We eventually get to our gate, get on the plane, and I watch an education doco on our way to Munich. The documentary is great, it's called Waiting for Superman and talks about the problems in America's education system. I really enjoy it. I also love looking out the window at the tiny villages next to the massive mountains. So pretty.

Finally we land and Willy and I give each other a high five - we made it! We clear the airport, grab our pass, and hop on the metro. We navigate the U-Bahn and S-Bahn with ease, the public transport in the Northern Hemisphere is just so good. Once we get to our stop we hop off, find the apartment building where we are due to meet our man at two, then grab some lunch. Willy is extremely happy to return to more European food, I am in two minds, but we both enjoy our pulled pork sandwiches. No pork in Turkey obviously.

At two pm we meet our man, get our key, and he tells us to go to Oktoberfest. Don't need to tell us twice. We hop back on the tube in search of the great, the mythical, Oktoberfest. Even in Central Station people everywhere are dressed in their traditional clothing. Men, women, children - even infants are dressed up, it's incredible. We locate the festival with little difficulty... It's huge! There are rows and rows of rides, food stall, souvenir stands, epic beer halls, chilled out beer gardens and much more. I love that the age range is so diverse, zero to one hundred, everyone is here and having a great time.

We walk around in a daze, have a beer in the gardens, stumble through the halls, then grab some dinner. I investigate the Currywurst and Willy gets to sate his craving for pork knuckle. We love Munich and we love Oktoberfest. I have so much more fun than I even thought that I could. Eventually we leave, I am shivering pretty hard at this point even with my jacket on, Willy is freezing too (we have just come from the med after all), and we make our way home through the tube.

What a weird but amazing day.