A Dawg Abroad

Eurotrip 2015.

Real life sometimes gets in the way, that and laziness.  I bet we could chalk about 75% of it up to laziness, at least in my case this has to be true.  The only thing that could get the blog out of retirement is a 12 day whirlwind trip to Europe for a little Australian family reunion and a 10 hour flight home.  I don’t know how long it will take me to put it all up, but it shouldn’t take too long…how many different ways can you write up “we went out and got drunk and had a great time”?

Having said that, I am going to hit the highlights, the lowlights (surprise surprise, I get lost in a foreign country) and some thoughts along the way.  I even took pictures and have some videos, so we will see how those turn out as well.  In all the trip consisted of 3 countries, 5 cities, 5 flights, 8 Australian travel mate reunions and a hell of a lot of trains.

Seattle-Frankfurt-Heidlberg

I have been doing fairly well at work recently and have won a few American Express gift cards.  They will become a reoccurring theme of the trip, but just to say that I brought over $1,700 in worthless pieces of plastic is an understatement.  This is where I have to hastag, #americanexpressisagreatcreditcardunlessyouwanttouseit!!!!!!!!!

Last time I was able to use the card was getting lunch in Seatac.  Maybe I will grab dinner there when we land.

10 or so hours after leaving Seatac I land in Frankfurt, Germany and have to take the train to meet up in Heidelberg.  I did not put nearly the amount of research into this trip as I have in past as I was staying with friends up until the last leg.  I sincerely pay the price for this along the way and Frankfurt was stop #1 of many.

Top 8 (I could not think of 10) features of my flight from Seattle to Germany

8.  Movies cost 8 euros a viewing, so F that.

7.  I played nearly 10 hours of candy crush and listened to Adam Carolla Podcasts the whole way there.

6.  The inflight what not to do in the air video featured a very tan white man dressed as a tribal chief smoking a piece pipe while his embarrassed white companion looked all embarrassed

5.  Turtlenecks and B.O.

4.  No free alcohol

3.  Middle seat and the kid in front of me reclined into my knees roughly 20 seconds after take-off

2.  NO FREE ALCOHOL!!!!!

1.  My laptop battery died before we flew over Canada…technically this was my fault, but screw you Condor Airlines for not having an outlet in the seats.

Ok, back to the trip.  I land in Frankfurt and knew I had to get to Heidelberg via train….that was all I knew.  After the super helpful gentleman at the information station told me that I should catch the train to Heidelberg in order to get to the Heidelberg train station (NO SHIT), I was able to get on the wifi and found out I needed to take the train to Manheim, in order to get to my ride.  I was nervous the whole way, got lost more than once, but managed to arrive at the correct station to my English friends shouting “U-DUB!!!” as we did every day I arrived home from work while in Australia.

The rest of that day consisted of touring a German Castle, a fantastic steak dinner, drinking at some local pubs,  “do you take American Express?”, blank stares, more drinks and to bed early for tomorrow’s Main Event….The Oktoberfest!!! 

Oktoberfest in Stuggart

We need to be on the train at 8am sharp to get to Stuggart.  The girls set their alarms for dawn in order to be ready on time.  The boys wake up at 7:20 and had time for all three of us to take showers and are the first ones out the door.  The hell you poor women go through to each day, but on this day, it was worth it.  Not knowing how long we were about to be on trains (almost 2 hours), we each bought 1 beer and were on our way.  Several borrowed beers and some of the most uncomfortable trains ever; we arrive at the ‘fest.

This tent holds roughly 5,000 people, and there were 6 of these going on at the same time on the fairgrounds.  I have checked with several people and we all pictured what Oktoberfest would be like the same.  A bunch of huge tents in an enormous field out in the middle of nowhere.  This was nothing like that.  It’s a big indoor facility with roughly 200 10-person tables, along with space for several bars, and standing room for the people that did not pay for a table.  There is a large stage up front where the band plays and a small area in the back for the bathrooms.

Almost immediately we are discovered not to be German, I don’t know if its cause we were wearing street clothes, looked completely lost or were only speaking English to each other, but the Germans snuffed us out fairly quickly.  To the point that two young men from Cologne found out I was in fact an American, and we can’t drink.  We proceeded to the “Schnapps bar” and as quickly as you can say, “I don’t really like Schnapps” in some half-German half English hybrid, we had already done 5 shots.  Really warms the belly up for the mugs of beer I was about to drink.  This did not happen to the English guys or Irish girl with us, just the lucky American.  Man people really don’t like us abroad….jokes on them though, I loved it!

To say that we were seated close to the stage would be a joke on the word close.  We were so close I could identify the lead singer’s balls in an all testicle lineup.  The seats were amazing, but it really put the spotlight on ole Patriotic Scott.  I had to learn the songs quickly and participate in everything.  Luckily I had a German guide that spoke excellent English and was more than happy to describe what the songs were about to me.

Basically on stage

                        My translator and I singchanting…. The next picture is my favorite!!!

                     All about timing!!!  The other slice of bread in this sandwich is English Matty

Top 5 songs that rocked the tent the hardest

5.  A German song about the exploits of a night in Amsterdam

4.  A German song about drinking at Oktoberfest

3.  A German song about having to stay drunk so your date doesn’t get ugly

2.  Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”

AND  #1…………..The Backstreet Boys “Backstreets Back”  Brought the effing roof down

Rather than go on and on about the event and how great it was I will skip ahead to the exciting part of this tale, getting home.  Now the tent I described was a madhouse pretty much from start to finish.  It’s not like people were getting more sober as the night went on.  Trouble was when it’s over, it’s over… you go out the exit and that is that.  The problem with that is there are 5 other identical tents ending the same time as ours, causing pure chaos on the grounds and leaving roughly 20,000 people that all have to go to the bathroom searching for one that does not have a 1-hour line.  Well, I found that bathroom and was in and out in seconds; however, I lost my group in the process.  Now I have been lost many many many times in my life.  The Bellingham Mall, The Disney Hotel, and Disneyland itself just to name a few.  I was quite young in for the time in Disneyland, but really kept my cool.  Lost at Oktoberfest in Stuttgart, among 30,000 drunk idiots like me, where I don’t speak the language and it took us 2 hours and 3 trains to get there was the most UNcool lost Scott had ever been.

My strategy: walk as fast as I can until I find someone I recognize….and it worked!!!  I run into two of the girls that shared a table with us and didn’t leave their side for the entirety of our 3 hour journey home.  Fast forward to them taking me to a local pub for some post fest pizza and more drinks.  Fast forward another 3 hours and I am sitting at the “locals” table talking about bands, ripping shots, and not worried at all about where I was going to sleep that night.  Around midnight all of a sudden the door opens and 3/4ths of our Oktoberfest crew walking in the bar and I am saved.  Turns out the pub was less than 30 feet from the house I was staying at, but since I didn’t know the address or really much of anything I figured I was in a whole different village altogether. 

         The older gentleman that adopted me as their drinking buddy

The rest of Germany was an all too quick amazingly fun blur.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story:

  Snapshot from the day 1 castle.  Beautiful country that Germany

       Some of our group, not sure what’s up with the photo quality.

German local that tried to drink me under the table when he found out I was America….ps guy, I drank those beers left on the table before the night was over.

    .   A little slice of home for an authentic German shot of something….tasted like burning.

   Sammie, Me, Matty, Jimmy and our lovely hostess…Anna

  SAP arena for all my Concur folks

                           One of my favorite things about Germany, no matter the weather people still congregate outdoors and drink.

That’s about it.  Huge thank you to Anna and her wonderful family for letting us stay with them.  The German girls that saved me from being lost at Oktoberfest forever, mainly you Samira!  And to Sammie, Jimmy, and Matty for picking up right where we left off in Sydney.  You are all very special to me.  Part II, England....pending