Oktoberfest again!

As some of your readers may have noted, I appreciate a pint or two of beer every now and then. So, since our good friend Sami is now living near Munich, I figured it would be the perfect timing to visit Sami during that Bavarian festival dedicated to this wonderful beverage.

Happy to find reasonably-priced Lufthansa tickets relatively last-minute, I hopped on the flight, and arrived in Munich after a relatively hassle-free trip. I then jumped on a train and headed off to where Sami lives, Rosenheim (which actually turned out to be an hours train journey from Munich, actually, towards Saltzburg. Happy to see Sami again, we chatted away into the night over a couple of beers in his nice flat (which I eventually in spite of my nearly non-existent sense of observation, realized he was sharing with a lady - mind you it did take rather a few non-too subtle hints from Sami for that to happen...).

The next day, we jumped on the train and headed into Munich, where we headed  straight away for Theresienwiese (the fairgrounds where the madness takes place). Dodging drunken Germans and foreigners (mostly the latter), we tried to get into one of the tents, but unfortunately failed miserably (and this was 9 in the morning!). But hey, no problem, we did find a nice table outside one of the tents, where we could commence the beer drinking ;-)

Since getting into a tent was basically mission impossible, we decided to head off to Englisher Garten instead, where some of my ex-colleagues form Ulm where hanging out. Quite a crowd had made their way down from Ulm: Scott, Mina, the mad Dane Jens, Meli, Vanessa, Emanuel, Steffi and Katrin. A nice mix of expats & locals, mostly all dressed in traditional Octoberfest wear though! Great to catch up with everybody again (hmm, thinking about it, the last time was pretty much exactly one year ago - at Octoberfest!).

After drinking far too much beer, we stumbled along to Steffi's flat, which was conveniently located in the centre of Munich, where we hanged out for a while, after which we found a nice little late-night bar where we continued. Me and Sami had a last train to catch to Rosenheim though, so we sadly bid everybody farewell and headed off (and nearly missed the train!). Interesting train journey - worse then the last train in Helsinki on a Saturday night - and that's saying something ;-)

The next day, both of us in surprisingly good shape, me and Sami decided to head off on a tour of Rosenheim. It's a decent-sized town (61,000 citizens according to wikipedia), and seems to be a pretty decent place to live in. The surroundings seem pretty nice, with a lot of parks and the Inn river flowing past the town. The town centre is pretty picturesque as well, with a surprisingly intact historical central, considering the heavy bombings the city suffered during World War II. Another interesting detail - apparently Rosenheim has the highest amount of bordellos per capita ;-)

And I did get to meet Sami's better half as well, as she got back from her trip to Brussels just before I had to catch my train to the airport! Hope to see them both in Nice soon ;-)

Party in the Port!

We've become big fans of the Port of Nice - it's one of the nicest parts of town, maybe the best place for going out and having dinner - the place is trendy and has great bars and restaurants. So we were quite keen to head over and check out the Fete du Port this particular weekend.

We stated off by cycling to the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, and having a walk around the old town (and naturally rewarding our hard physical effort with a nice ice cream, as we customarily do). A perfect day for it too - the sun was out. September is probably my favourite time of the year in Nice - the weather is still great, but it's not too hot, and the tourists are mostly gone (sounds a bit pretentious coming from a foreigner like me, I suppose...).

We then made our way to the port, where we checked out the naval activities (sail boats, traditional boats navigating amongst the big yachts and the ferries headed for Corsica).

The plan was to meet up with the usual gang, that is to say Aurelien, Julie, Vincent, Clemence & Sarah. Before meeting up with the rest of the crowd, we headed over to our favourite Irish Pub, Ma Nolan's, for a couple of beers to get into the mood. Thankfully, we were able to get a table, in spite of the big crowds that had taken over the port... We were also treated to a proper Rio Carneval procession - with some exotic-looking boyz n' girls dressed up colourfully and parading along the port.

We eventually managed to meet up with the others, and desperately tried to find a place to eat or drink, but the place was getting a bit overrun by people, there to enjoy the food festival (after glancing at the queues for the food festival for a split second, we opted against spending all night in a queue) or to enjoy the music festivals. We managed to grab a table by the port, and survived through the night on snacks and beer. All in all, excellent fun! Great atmosphere, and good to see everybody again.

Unfortunately, we had that last damn train to catch, so we had to leave the fun way too early... Sometimes I really miss living in Nice!