BEER FEST(S)

I know. It's been a shameful while. I've heard pleas from many to update my blog (and to be honest, I'm honored you haven't given up on me yet...or perhaps by now you have!) As one friend stated it best, she's had a baby and come back from maternity leave in the time it's taken me to update my blog.

I'll start my updates with some more of my 2011 travels. My main highlight for this post is all of my autumn trips that revolved around the universal language of beer. That's right, we're covering Oktoberfest and Belgium in this recap post. Crazy times.

Oktoberfest

Why order pints, when you can have STEINS?!

30 of my expat friends and I ventured to the land of lederhosen,



bratwurst, pretzels,



castles, and fairy tales for the adult fairy tale that is Oktoberfest.



The city of Munich swirls, quite literally, in it.



And this festival does not discriminate almost any age.



Our party was set up in the Hofbrau Haus "tent," which was more like a massive building.



The table reservations run in 4 hour shifts and you are alloted 2 steins and a meal of rotisserie chicken and potato salad for about 35 euro. We had the morning session, so the tent was just filling in at the beginning of our reservation.



By the end of the 4 hours, it was madness....a sea of drunk people! We lost many in our party on our way out of the tent that night.



Things got a bit crazy within my party as well. I'll let the pictures tell the stories.







We also tried to do some sight seeing. I wanted to see the beautiful Neuschwanstein Castle, it's always been a dream of mine. We ventured over for the 2 hour train ride from Munich to see the castle, but unfortunately it was freezing and raining, so it was pretty hard to enjoy the view! My hands literally felt like icicles and many were being blown by the heavy winds on the treacherous viewing bridge.








Belgium: Bruges and Ghent

We had been planning a nice relaxing trip to Bruges and Ghent for months, and I was pretty excited to visit these historic and beautiful cities as well as drink fine Belgium beer as Michael has converted me to a believer in only Belgium beer now. Unfortunately I had caught a hard core cold and by the first day of our trip I was running a fever the whole day and was too out of it to enjoy most of the time in Bruges, including what was going to be a satisfying sip of our favourite beer, Leffe.







In Bruges we did a boat tour and walked up the steps of the famous bell tower dating from the 1200s I believe. There were lots of bell towers to climb up in these quaint Belgium towns!







The town square

Although Bruges is the more "sexy" Belgium location, especially because of the movie In Bruges, I really preferred Ghent. Ghent had a much richer history and more to do. We stayed at a really nice Marriott for free courtesy of work and the Marriott's doorsteps had this spectacular view, which was also the central part of the town. I was actually extremely excited about this hotel ever since I saw it on the internet, and it did not disappoint!



Doorstep of the Marriott Ghent.

Our first night in Ghent we had a surprisingly delicious dinner of couscous. We were given these massive plates full of couscous and lamb with some kind of broth to poor over all of it. This was our view from dinner, which is just to the corner of the Marriott.



Ghent even had an ancient castle and another bell tower!



Castle in Ghent.

Overall, both beer fests were a success! Cheers! ;)