I have now spent slightly over a week in Czechland, the homeland. It’s cold here.
Unlike the last time I came over, things don’t seem strangely small, or indeed, strange in any way. I guess it’s only been two years, so things haven’t changed much, and my memories haven’t faded or transformed as much as last time. One thing of note is that SUVs have now become a feature of the road – still nowhere near as much as in the States, but definitely much more than had been the case. People say that the gas prices in the U.S. and the subsequent drop in SUV sales over there has pushed the automakers to try to flog more of them over here, apparently with some success.
Within a day of getting in I saw many of my local homies; ’twas just like old times. On the packed night tram back, we performed an amazing canon of “Are you sleeping, brother John?” – and not only was it in canon, which would be impressive enough on its own, it was also in four different languages, these being Čeština, English, Deutsch, and Francais. We were joined by some tourists; I noted those from the States and from Holland.
At midnight on Friday, I boarded a bus en route to Munich and, of course, Oktoberfest. The bus was packed with English-speaking folks, and I met a number of very cool people. Many were just seeing the world, traveling for months at a time, then perhaps spending a couple months working in a place to make it a temporary home base for discovering the local area (local here being a place like Western Europe). It was all very inspiring and encouraging, really. I may be seeing someone in London again.
Oktoberfest was, well, just like you see in the movies. It only took me about half an hour to stop laughing at all the Lederhosen fellows. We got in line in front of a tent around 7:00 am. By 9:15 they opened the gates. I’d never been pushed so hard in my life. I hardly had my feet on the ground half the time; it was crushingly cool. If you dropped anything, well, you’d say goodbye. Some lady just inside the tent was crying, looking back; I didn’t stop to inquire the reason and kept rushing and rushing, scrambling to find a table. We did, only barely, sharing with some British girls we’d met outside. The 8000-capacity tent filled up in a two minutes. Whoa.
The fest itself was lots of beer, food, beer, music, beer, people, and some beer. Every now and then, the traditional Deutschmusik would be interspersed with something much less traditional – a thick base line, followed by 8000 thousand chanting voices, in………the bass line of Seven Nation Army. It got this popular after the Italian fans adopted it as their chant for the Euro, says an Italian from the neighboring table. We’d heard a techno remix of it in Beijing as well.
The night we spent – not alone, by any means – in the Hauptbahnhof, the train station. It seems that they let this be during Oktoberfest. All the hotels, hostels, and other accomodations were hopelessly packed and overpriced. And then I headed Czechlandwards yet again. And here I am. And here we are.
