Where in the world is Brandon OBrien

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 @ 10:57 PM in 2025 Oktoberfest Trip

Today was a long day, as most travel days are. I picked Ben up around 9:30am in Santa Fe and then we drove to Albuquerque to catch our flight. The first flight was from ABQ to Houston, which was uneventful. From Houston we caught our direct flight to Munich. The flight was delayed a little bit but no big deal. After we boarded the flight to Munich, I watched 28 Years Later before dinner, then took half of a sleeping pill after a few glasses of wine to help me pass out. Dinner service consisted of beef, chicken or pasta. I ordered the chicken which ended up being a curry dish with rice. While tasting good, it didn't really fill me up too much.

Unfortunately sleep didn't come easily and I only had a couple hours of sleep in total for the 10 hour flight. In addition to 28 Years Later, I watched Thunderbolts again which was something entertaining. Breakfast on the flight was either a cinnamon roll or a breakfast sandwich, so I opted for the sandwich. We landed in Munich around 10am and then got stuck in a massive customs line. Fortunately it was moving pretty fast and they were breaking people off to go to a different customs area which helped speed things up.

After Ben got his bag, we booked a day ticket for the transit system and then got on a train to Munich. It was about noon so we weren't able to check into our hotel, but we were able to drop our bags off and go to Augustiner Keller where I had a beer and a Pfefferschnitzel. The beer was way too easy to drink, probably because I was very dehydrated. After lunch, we started walking around to kill some time but the rain came and it started coming down pretty hard. We made it to the Marienplatz but then hopped on the S-Bahn and took it back to the station closest to our hotel. We killed some time in the lobby until we could check in.

At 4:15 I met up with Mike and Anne and the other 9 people who were going to the Lowenbrau tent at Oktoberfest tonight. We had a 10 person table reserved for 5:00-10:00. Each seat at the table comes with vouchers for two beers and an order of a half chicken. The Oktoberfest grounds are filled with all kinds of rides, food booths, carnival games and obviously beer tents. It was like being at the midway of a big state fair.

We got seated at our table and ordered a round of beers for everyone. It started off pretty mellow but as the hours passed and people drank more and more, the crowd started getting really loud with lots of dancing on tables and singing. It was a really cool experience, even if the people behind us were extremely drunk and kept bumping into us.

The tables are really crammed in there so there isn't really space to move around once you're seated. I ended up having about 2.5 liters of beer and a half chicken. We all ended up leaving around 9:30 and then got some sausages at a stand outside the Lowenbrau tent.

The walk back to the hotel only took about 15 minutes and by the time I got back I was ready to sleep. Between several big beers and very little sleep on the flight, I was beat.

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