Mckenzie and Joe Visit!

I think the cheesiest and most appropriate way to begin this post is with a quote from one of my friends and co-workers who sat at our table at Oktoberfest: "It seemed like all four of you have been friends forever! I know you and Mckenzie grew up together, but the four of you - you just fit together." Cue sappy music, but seriously, I think she's totally right. Mckenzie and Joe came in town for 8 days, and I was so excited about their visit for tons of reasons. But Brian and I had never met Joe, so I couldn't wait to meet and spend good quality time with someone who is extremely important to one of my best friends! And as my co-worker observed, we just loved Joe! We had the best time with him and Mckenzie.

We picked them up at the airport on Friday and so the fun began! Within 20 minutes of arriving at our apartment, Joe and Brian were drinkin' a cold one and talking about real estate. That night, Brian and I asked the innocent question, "You guys like pork, right?" Mckenzie and Joe had no idea at that time how much pork they would be eating over the next week! It became a joke toward the end of their visit.

The first night :)

That night, we learned that Joe loves sauerkraut. I think he ate more than I've ever seen one person eat in a meal! We were happy to see he was taking in the German culture so well!

Saturday was Tour Frankfurt day! We had decent weather, so we walked downtown to see the sights.

Market

And apple wine (which none of us like, for the record).
You just have to try it when you visit. Harmless initiation of sorts :)

We also found these guys playing these long horns. I did a quick google search of "long German horn" and found out that these are called Alphorns.


These guys were playing just around the corner from the Alphorn guys. I guess it was weird music display day in Frankfurt. All of the music was really nice, though!

Stopping for a bratwurst - pork meal number 3.
This was after a lunch of wienerschnitzel. We love Germany!

On Sunday, we took Mac and Joe to the airport to pick up their rental car - they had Brussels and Amsterdam to visit over the next few days! They came back to us on Wednesday evening, though, and we enjoyed a nice relaxing evening at the apartment. I made a roast (not pork :) ), and Brian and I enjoyed stories about their trip.

Thursday! Time for Munich and Oktoberfest!! We left around 9:30 Thursday morning, so we expected to arrive in Munich around 2pm. Possible road block - traffic. Brian proved to be quite the trailblazer, though! He started out by dodging at least 3 hours of parking lot traffic by doing a quick "backing out" maneuver on the autobahn. Don't worry, Moms, he was perfectly safe and a hero. We would have gone crazy just sitting there. He drove us through gorgeous German countryside and gave us a nice tour! The leaves were really changing colors, so it was a really beautiful drive. The detour did delay our arrival till about 4pm, but we enjoyed the ride!

After checking into our hotel room (singular - yes, Joe had to learn to love us fast), we made our way downtown to the Marienplatz where we enjoyed a late lunch of PORK! At this point, Joe had coined the term J-Schnitz for his favorite pork meal, Jagerschnitzel.


Next, dirndl and lederhosen shopping! Oh, and I forgot to mention this great story. When Mckenzie and Joe came back on Wednesday night, Brian and I had this whole speech prepared to convince them to buy dirndls and lederhosen with us. Mac and Joe played it off well and acted like they were up for it. Then as I was finishing up the preparations for dinner, they disappeared and then popped out of their room looking like Hansel and Gretel! They had already purchased their Oktoberfest gear before coming to Germany - Brian and I were impressed! So back to Munich - Brian and I needed our German attire! Were we successful? You'll have to continue reading (or scrolling through pics) to find out!

After some shopping, we made our way to the Oktoberfest fair grounds to take a look around. And to ride the crazy-high swings!

Preparing for the ride

Ready...

I love this picture that Brian took!

It was later in the evening and it was a week night, so we were able to get into the Hofbrau Tent without any problems. It was very evident that everyone there had a fun night, and it got us really excited about Saturday night!

Friday was Joe's birthday, so we decided to celebrate at the Hofbrauhaus. We started off at a bar next door, which had great goulash soup and more importantly, delicious beer and pretzels!


I know what you're thinking - those beers are huge! Funny story, I tried to order a small beer, but our waitress laughed in my face and said, "This is Bavaria. There's only one size of beer." Yes ma'am! I'll take a liter at noon, then. Yikes!

Hofbrauhaus was so much fun! We consumed more pork and enjoyed an evening of, well, beer. When we first arrived, finding a table didn't look promising. It was already packed! But then, there it was, the perfect table for four! It was in an area that looked like it might be reserved, so Joe and Brian quickly made friends with all of our neighbors to ensure we could stay at the table.




Then, I'm not quite sure how Brian discovered it, but he found a way to get upstairs where there was a table right next to the stage where the oompah band would play!

Delighted with the feast!

Friday night was a pretty crazy night, but we had a ton of fun :)

Saturday was Oktoberfest day! And...

Dirndl and Lederhosen Day!

How can you not be excited to hang out with this?

Everything's more fun when you're in dirndls and lederhosen. Even a breakfast of pastries at the train station.

Love these lederhosen lads

We started the day off with a walk around town. We needed to pace ourselves for the day :) We found a cute open market area with the Oktoberfest pole!

Enjoying the nice chilly fall weather at the market

We continued our walk past the Marienplatz...

And then back to the Hofbrauhaus for pictures!

While we were there, this guy came up to me speaking German, but when I asked if he spoke English, we found out he was a fellow Texan! Small world! He said he was speaking German because he thought I was "a real German girl". haha! Dirndl win for me!

Mac and Joe in front of Hofbrau

Continuing the walk with a bratwurst - must have PORK

We walked to the Chinese garden, a really beautiful, huge park. It was so peaceful, and the leaves were just starting to change colors.

We found the Chinese tower in the middle of the park, and there was quite a crowd! There was also a really cool horse-drawn carriage. Seeing everyone enjoying a brew, we caved in and had our first beer for the day while listening to some live oompah music to get us geared up for Oktoberfest!

The carriage

And one of the horses - they were really well dressed! Brian was cracking me up by pretending to be the voice of the horse, "HUH? WHAT? I CANT HEAR A THING!"

Hangin' out in the park

After the park, we made our way to the train to head toward the festival grounds! Munich was very prepared for us..."Which way?"

"Oh, that way!"

When we made it to the fair grounds, our next step was finding our tickets! My friend, Heather, had bought them for us, and we were supposed to meet her "in front of the tent at 4:30." The problem was, the tent had about 10 different entrances and it was completely surrounded by tons of people. And, Heather's phone wasn't working. Think, think - how will we find her? We had Joe, Mac, and I - all under 5'6" and were getting lost in the crowd - or we had Bri - our 6'4" periscope! So we sent Bri out as a scout, and about 10 minutes later, he found her! Tickets, check! We were ready to get inside that tent!

Yay, we made it!

Each of our tickets got us 2 liters of beer per person and half of a chicken! What a deal! And yay - no pork!!! Plus, the rest of the group at our tables (Heather had reserved 2 tables) were awesome! They came from all over and were a blast to hang out with. Everyone was in dirndls and lederhosen - so festive! There were two guys who had brought hilarious hats, and Joe came up with the genius idea to combine the two for one amazing look!

Look closely and notice the curly brown ponytail

If that wasn't enough, let's go ahead and hike up those lederhosen :) Perfect!

Cuties sans hats :)

The tent was actually really pretty inside with all of the lights! Just don't look on the ground - eek.

For a second, I lost Brian...

Aw, there he is! I love that smile!

We had one crazy fun night!

And as if the tent wasn't enough fun, next we went back out to the fair and found the craziest, spin-iest ride there was and decided that we had to ride it! I love roller coasters, so I was really pumped about this idea! And the ride turned out to be one of the best fair-ground rides I've ever experienced! We had a blast.

On Sunday, it was time to drive back to Frankfurt. We were all so sad to leave Munich! Brian was our fearless driver all the way back to Frankfurt, once again doing a great job of dodging traffic. When we got back, Brian and I offered to take Mckenzie and Joe out for one last German dinner of pork :) We ended up eating pizza at a new restaurant that's close to our apartment. We didn't want to be near any type of schnitzel!

Monday morning was a sad time - I drove Mckenzie, Joe, AND Brian all to the airport to catch their flights. Brian had to go on a work trip that morning, so he got to hang out with Mac and Joe a little longer at the airport. That drive home was so sad for me! I didn't want their visit to be over.

A couple of days after they had left, Joe sent Brian and me an email with some Oktoberfest stats from the year (we went on the last weekend, so stats were finalized with our help :) ). This article is so funny and I would highly encourage you to read it. We like to think we helped contribute to the 7 million liters of beer consumed at Oktoberfest this year, the most ever consumed at Oktoberfest! And we're happy to report that we were not contributors to some of the more pathetic stats - our favorite one was the 37 children lost :) Or maybe the tuba.

Thank you, Mckenzie and Joe, for coming to visit! We had a blast with you!!