Diary of the First Day of Oktoberfest '05  

As told by Jason Duke, September 26, 2005

Ok, is there anything worse than a long plane ride in coach? If so, there can't be much. 6 of the 7 of us were on the same flight. Worth, had to connect in Paris.

We arrived at the Munich airport at around 7:20 in the morning, September 26th. We made it to our hotel room around 9:30, but unfortunately the room was not yet ready so we decided to go up the street to a bar and drink beer.

We finally got to our room around 11:30 and several of us thought it to be a good idea to take a nap before the evening festivities. Leaving our hotel at 17:30, we hopped on the very crowded U-bahn for the one stop ride to the tents. We got to our reserved table at 18:00 and the fun began.

Since Mark, Sal, Derrick and myself were veterans of the whole experience, we downed our liters fairly quickly and sang songs we knew by heart. Dave and Wendy seemed to enjoy themselves, but Worth was tired and decided to head back to the hotel room early. Mark's new friend from Munich, Julia, showed up soon after we got there. She's very nice and looks-wise, out of Mark's league :) j/k bud. We also met up with two of the servers we made friends with last year, Nadja and Ines. It was good to see them.

Time, and liters, go by and there we are around 22:00, all in varying stages of happiness. I'm standing (Jason) there talking with Sal when I hear *thud* *flump* *splash*. Apparently, a drunk Italian ran fell into Mark, who then proceeded to fall on the ground and take Julia with him. Their beers were soon all over Sal's back, which isn't the preferable place for such a fine brew. We helped them up and it was then that we noticed that Mark was in trouble. He had gone from normal to very drunk in a short amount of time. A few minutes later, Mark decided to try and climb over the rail to our table. This wasn't a good idea as he managed to miss his intended step and fell headfirst onto the table, nearly knocking himself out and finishing the job the beer was already working on.

Now, for the best part. The lights were cut off around 10:30 and we were preparing to leave when Mark looked at us and said, "Be back in 5", as he left with Julia. Mark never did make it back to the tents before we were shown the door so we took his backpack and headed home thinking he would just spend the rest of the evening with Julia.

Flash forward now until 4 in the morning. We are all sound asleep but then my phone rings. It's Mark. After inquiring about his bag, I asked him where in the world he was and what the hell that racket was. He said, "Don't ask." Well, naturally I kept asking until he told me where he was. He was roughly 42 kilometers from Munich and walking back. The racket I had heard was the cars on the highway he was walking down blowing by. After my initial shock wore off, I asked him how the hell he had gotten to wherever he was. He didn't know. All he knew was that he was standing under a tree, beside the highway, soaked to the skin from the constant heavy rain, and bleeding.

The only thing I could think of was to try and figure out how to get him to the nearest train station. To do that, I needed to know where he was. As he named off the town of Feldkirchen, I looked to the south of Munich, where he had apparently left with Julia, for the town. No luck. I did, however, find the town eventually...except that it was northeast of Munich, not to the south! So, not only was he a long way from home, he was in nearly the opposite direction from where he started off from. Thankfully, a kind German lady gave him a ride after he had trekked about 10 km's closer to Munich and in the door he came at 8:30, took a shower and went to bed. He claims not to know what happened, but it was noted by his roommates that he did not have on the shirt he left with, but did manage to pick up a jean jacket...