My oh my. I am FINALLY going to wrap up Oktoberfest for you all, even though it ended two weeks ago, there are cute pictures and important details to be shared :))

First, the super cliche ones. The last Friday of Oktoberfest was a bit of a madhouse, but we braved it anyway in hopes of good times and bratwurst (but personally mostly bratwurst)((bratwurst = good times)). Before even making it to a tent, I had to stop and buy one of these guys:

 

These little heart cookies are EVERYWHERE, as I think I've mentioned before, and this was the smallest size you could buy. It says "Ich liebe dich", which means "I love you", and TECHNICALLY someone else is supposed to buy it for you, but I bought it for myself and pretended it was from someone else ;) happy days. According to anyone who is from Munich, you do not eat the "lebkuchen" from Oktoberfest, you just keep it as a memento and buy actual, decent-tasting lebkuchen from a bakery, of which there are no shortage in any part of the city. I however, am not a fan of letting cookies go stale just to throw them away eventually anyway (and part of the icing got crushed as we were stampeding into the Hofbrau tent) so I went for it! and instantly regretted my decision. Well maybe not regretted it, I would have never known right? but these things are definitely better appreciated as a keepsake than a sweet. It was AWFUL. Simply dreadful. In summary, I will never be eating one of those again, nor will I partake in this apparent "decent-tasting" lebkuchen. There's no improving that, haha.

*side note for Schaefers: The whole thing was eerily close to how our gingerbread houses would taste, if we were ever brave (or stupid) enough to eat them. The gingerbread was very similar, except actually chewable (heheee) and the icing was exactly the same! Super hard and gross.

 Now for the best part! Bratwurst:

SOOO GOOD. Like the best hot dog you've ever eaten, plus a little extra just for authenticity and real identifiable meat :) We never ended up all getting into a tent that Friday, but none of us really cared, we got our bratwurst and were happy.

The very last Sunday of Oktoberfest we started early, at noon :) We had no trouble getting into a tent or finding a table and sat down next to a Croatian man and two South African pilots. We were then joined by a newly married couple, who were not only from California but the guy graduated as a biomedical engineer from Cal Poly in 2008! Such a small world. We spent the majority of our day there, standing on the benches and singing along with the band :))

Ein Prosit der Gemuetlichkeit!