Perched somewhat precariously in my seat on the train from the Mosel Valley to Berlin, I'm trying to find a little time and space to write.  Trains in Germany so far have been efficient, on-time, and unreasonably crowded.  On the last train I sat on the floor in the bike section wedged between a young girl trying to sleep (taking up way too much space) and a gentleman in full military uniform, presumably headed home for the weekend.  People stand in the aisles, in the corridors between trains and jockey for the few unreserved and empty seats.  Steph and I were lucky, and got on at a relatively empty station, and are some of the fortunate few with seats.  Yay, a tiny bit of time to squeeze in some writing!

For the last few days we have been camping in Cochem, in the Mosel Valley.  Camping, while it does save money when we're not couchsurfing, does tend to cut us off from the world a little bit.  Our campsite was a quiet one, filled with professional German campers.  It seems that the Germans like to create 'summer' homes for themselves, setting up RV's in delightful locations along the banks of the Mosel or the Rhine sometime after Easter, leaving them for the summer, and then packing up in October.  Steph and I got a few weird looks when we showed up with our backpacks and pitched our very small tent.  Oh, I forgot to mention, everyone staying at the campground was at least 65.

Germany has been pretty incredible so far.  We spent a bit of time in Munich, but saw nothing.  The first day there Steph reffed a rugby tournament, and I woke up late, did a little laundry, then headed out to watch some rugby games.  Unfortunately, I didn't look hard enough at the map before I left our hosts house, and spent three hours riding my bike around the city looking for the fields.  Not so smart.  That killed the first half a day.  That evening, our host, Susi, was planning on going to Oktoberfest, and we decided to meet her there.  I've wanted to go to Oktoberfest for a long time, but I wasn't quite prepared for what it actually was.

Oktoberfest is the biggest, most crowded carnival you've ever been to.  All Germans (probably half of the people there) are dressed in traditional dress (lederhosen and the like), and everyone is drinking giant one liter steins of local beer.  These steins are heavy.  Like, I needed both arms to hold it after the first five minutes.  (Until the bar-maids, who all looked to be around 40 would push through the crowd holding eight in each hand.  Then I would take my second hand away and tell myself to stop being such a wimp)  The night of Oktoberfest actually worked out surprisingly well.  To get into the giant beer tents, you need a reservation, and these reservations are generally secured a year in advance.  Now, I'm a good planner, but not that good.  Because we didn't have a reservation, we milled around outside the tent where our host was, looked for an opening past security, made a couple of dashes through the crowd (one security officer caught my backpack and pulled me back through the crowd while I successfully body-blocked for steph) and eventually made it into the YARD around the tent.  Next was the nearly impossible task of getting into the tent itself.  The doors were small, and the guards weren't.  We saw a few people trying to sweet talk their way in, including offers of euros and beer.  The guards were not having it.  I pretty much resigned myself to staying in the yard for the evening.  Luckily, Susi had a plan.  She sent out one of her friends, who did have a reservation armband, we all linked arms, she showed the guard her band then walked quickly through the door with us in tow.  Worked like a charm.  The second guard we passed tried to question me, but I just smiled at him, pretended to not be able to hear what he was saying, and allowed myself to be pulled through the door.  Couldn't have worked out better if we had planned it.   So that evening we spent way too much money drinking a bit too much beer,  singing German songs at the top of our lungs while jumping up onto the wooden benches at our balcony table.  It was an amazing night.  So amazing, in fact, it killed most of the second day.

Most of the time we have spent in Germany outside of Munich has been in the western wine region of the country - the Mosel and Rhine valleys.  Many who read this blog know that my favorite wine is German Riesling.  I have a hard time understanding why anyone could not like German Riesling.  It's acidic, sweet and perfectly refreshing on a warm evening.  We spent two days in the Rhine and three in the Mosel, tasting as many different local rieslings as we could.  We shared one wine 'carousel' in the Rhine that had 15 different local wines on it, ordered for us to maximize our tasting ability.  We toured some vineyards in both valleys - very exciting for me, we happen to show up during harvest, so we watched the workers harvesting grapes from impossibly steep slopes.  Like, the kind of steep that you don't even want to walk down, let alone harvest grapes on.  Still, it was entertaining.  We toured a couple wine cellers, and basically took it slow, enjoying a few river cruises and mountain hikes.  

Now we're off to Berlin for a few days, and I'm preparing myself for another big city, some more heart-wrenching museums and all the WIFI I can soak up.  Oh, and one more thing.  A friend told me about a California-style burrito place in one of the neighborhoods there.  If they're any good, I'm planning on filling my backpack with them.  I know I should be enjoying german sausages and potato salads, but seriously.  I would kill for a good burrito right now.  In fact, we're still an hour outside Berlin, and we've just decided that that's going to be our first stop.

Drindels, Leiderhosen, fairytale castles and sleepy, romantic villages along picturesque rivers. As we travel to Berlin, its nice to reflect that Germany has a wonderful culture and storied history beyond that of the early 20th century.

Our trip began with a 7am train out of Zagreb, that took us through Slovenia and Austria before reaching Munich. It felt like cheating to get a Slovenian stamp on my passport, since we didn't even stop to get a cup of coffee. The train got full as we entered Austria, and our little compartment shared the amazement of the Austrian Alps, which in late September either still or already had snow in some mountainous parts. It may be my love affair with the Sound of Music, but I think that countryside is the most beautiful I've ever seen.

Fussen
It may have been a tad optimistic to expect cheap car rentals in Munich during an Oktoberfest weekend to travel down to Fussen, so that we could drive along the "romantic road." But even by train we enjoyed it so much that I could have stayed longer, had we not had such a hard time finding a place to sleep (the last night we had to camp outside the hostel). We went to the Neuschwanstein castle, carted down a mountain luge, and biked around a countryside lake.

Munich / Oktoberfest
But this was just our first stop, and there was so much more to do. Next up we traveled back to Munich for Oktoberfest. Although we arrived in time to go on Friday night, I had arranged to referee the Munich Oktoberfest 7's tournament on Saturday, so we walked outside of the festival, down to the Marienplatz and had as quiet an evening as the city would allow. The next morning I got up way too early for my liking and made it down to the tournament at 8am, not knowing if I should be there on time (I figure the Germans for being punctual people) or rugby time (it was an Oktoberfest tournament after all). Naturally things got started late, but the rugby was good, the teams respectful and english speaking enough, and at the end of the day I was awarded to ref the plate final. Erin had come to watch in the afternoon, and was itching to get out of there the second the final whistle blew, and we traveled back to our couchsurfing hosts house, showered and were at the festival by 7pm.

It's hard to imagine what Oktoberfest is if you've never been there. We were blown away by the party. We were a little nervous about showing up on a saturday night with no reservations, and by the large crowds we would encounter (neither of us do well in crowded places). Luckily we had an in with our host, who had been there since 3pm. Our mission to get into the hall was almost like a spy story. We snuck into the porch of a beer hall and when we were almost done with our first stein (a mostly full liter sized stein, mind you), we received a text on which door we should try to get in. We hung outside by a man who was fully passed out, and a group of italians who were trying to smooze the greek security guard with "we're friends, italy finances greece, so you should let us in." We rendezvoused with our contact who was nonchalantly waving a bar menu, and then we followed her, hand in hand as she showed multiple sets of guards her reservation armband. It could not have gone smoother.

While the party outside was something out of a high schoolers dream carnival, inside the beer tents is out of a grown up fairy tale. Literally hundreds of tables of traditionally-dressed people standing on benches, waving their beers and singing along to the 20-piece band in the center of the tent. We sat with our hosts friends, sang along to the songs that were in english, chatting with each other and occasionally ran interference for the girls who were politely but wearily chatting with flirty drunk old men. Toward the end of the night, Erin ordered the most delicious half chicken I'd ever had the pleasure of three tiny bites.

The next day was a slow start. Our host, who had been there twice as long as us, was not going anywhere, and we nixed the idea to stay one more night before heading out on our next adventure. Oktoberfest is fun, but no way we could do it two nights in a row and be able to appreciate anything else for a few days.

The Rhine and Mosel Valleys
We scramble to pack our bags in time to get the 1:40 train out of Munich, which we miss because my backpack swallows important things and only regurgitates them in the most calm and labored way (I have already started looking for a mid-trip replacement). We arrive in the sleepy village of Bacharach (pronounced BAH-HA-HA, no joke) in the evening. It was amusing to us that we had followed our age-appropriate Munich trip with a week surrounded by pensioners. Later we discovered that this was a hotspot in the 60's so apparently the only ones who remember this are white-hairs.

The region is known for two things. Castles and Wine. We spent our first day going to St. Goar, a great "bring a flashlight and walk through the underground tunnels" kind of castle ruin. Somehow, my fear of ghosts did not inhibit me. The next day we took a boat down the Rhine, while narrating the scenery with Rick Steve's blitz commentary (An Aside: Basically our entire German trip has been guided by "our good friend" Rick. If you've never seen his TV show on PBS or read any of his travel books, we both highly recommend his trip itinerary). We arrived in Cochem, the middle of the Mosel wine valley that night and spent the following days a bit frustrated by the poorly run TI, but still visiting a great Castle (Berg Eltz) and tasting fantastic wines (which was a welcomed reprieve from all the beer we'd been drinking).

And now we're on the train to Berlin. It will be nice to be back in a city, surrounded by noise, and traffic, people and mess. You miss the strangest things after a lovely week in the country. Tomorrow I referee again, this time a division 2 men's rugby game in Potsdam. Fingers crossed it goes well!
-SB