When I last left you updated on this spectacular voyage to Europe with our beloved Oilers I was just arriving in Munich and while writing about it the European death cold I contracted was taking a hold of me. As you can see I am still alive, barely but here I am let you know all about my time in Munich. Shall we? 

As soon as I met my friends Lars and Ansa in the hotel room, they were ready to go for breakfast. They had discovered a small pub near the hotel the night before. The barkeep there, Elky, was a delight and she served us the traditional German breakfast of sausages, pretzel, and beer. It was all very delicious and I couldn’t help but feel that doing things like this makes for an even more special experience.

After heading back to the hotel to shower and snooze for 15 minutes we were off to Oktoberfest. The first thing we wanted to do was find lederhosen. I know, some of you may be rolling your eyes at the thought but when you ride the train in you almost feel out of place not wearing it. 

We found a small shop just outside the main gates and the folks in there were scared looking at me trying to see if they had something that would fit. Long story short I am too thicc for German lederhosen, but this story isn’t all bad. I was originally wearing my Connor McDavid #97, and within seconds of my walking through the front gates of Oktoberfest I was instantly recognized with the statement “America, fuck yeah”… A little offside but he did apologize profusely, and I have since taken some time to log all the times I was “recognized” in this twitter thread.

On day one of the fest, we had the plan to get into the most tents possible. That was much easier said than done.

First up was the Paulaner tent. 

A spectacularly large space with a huge bandstand in the middle of the whole thing. We found seats next to some folks there from England (they had just met either other as well) and a fast friendship started. This is how finding seating works, you look for openings and you ask to join others. Servers are always around willing to bring you a massive stein of beer. Such a wild time.

Up next we headed over to the Hofbrau tent.

We ended up sticking here for a few more beers than planned as well as a half chicken that was to die for with a vinegar potato salad add-on.

The final stop we had was the wildly busy Lowenbrau tent.

As we had to sneak in the back entrance, we ran into a family of Arizonans who love Connor as much as they love their own team. We found some seats with some guys from Bulgaria who were super interested in traveling to Canada and working there. By this point, Dan was pretty well drunk and so as a group, we made the choice to head home and give it a go the next day.

The nighttime stroll through Munich was lovely if not a little disorienting and when we hopped on a train and 2/3s of the trip (myself included) passed out. Unfortunately we rode the train 40 minutes into the west of Munich. Our hotel was on the far east side of town. A long night on about two hours of sleep got longer.

I mentioned it in my last report but it bears repeating, I caught the Europe Death Cold (as I have coined it) and if you combine the EDC with jet laggy Dan, you get sleeping in for almost 12 hours.

Once I finally joined the land of the living and downed an F1 race car driver’s energy drink, we were off again.

This time we took a little detour before Oktoberfest to try one of the “Hop on, hop off” tours. If you have never had the chance to do one before, I highly recommend. Just a loop around the city but if you want to get off and explore one of the places a little closer you will have the option of jumping back on the tour with the next bus (they run every 20 minutes).

Full disclosure, I fell asleep HARD for this one so I will now pretend to tell you about history that I remember from it.

There were these gates, and then there was this guardhouse, and Hitler was going to attack the guards but got stopped by riot police and put into jail. And there was an art gallery, or the school of television and art. Something like that.

So yea, take the tour and don’t come down with the EDC.

We first had to make a stop at the Hofbrau Haus which is the home of the Hofbrau brewery and therefore much tradition.

Even if you’re not here for Oktoberfest, I highly recommend this stop, it’s worth the wait.

Then it was back to the hallowed grounds of Oktoberfest and specifically the Hofbrau tent once more to meet up with some fellow Edmontonians. Monday night, somehow more so than Sunday was chaos. There were fights, there were people dragged out. There was a large amount of people there in comparison so it’s understandable. I was even kicked by a drunk guy shortly after we left.

The chaos continued as we walked to a station that never seemed to show up. Made it home safely and able to tell you the story.

Today I travelled to Cologne with every intention of taking it easy and writing this article and planning out tomorrow (The Koln game better). For instance, we still have an extra ticket that we have yet to sell. But I have made the plans to meet outside the arena at 1pm tomorrow (Germany time) to attend the fan event and then find somewhere warm to pre-game. Let your friends know and let’s have some fun.

Thank you everyone for reading, and thanks to all the folks I have run into so far.