Our hotel was located right next to Olympia Park, where the Olympics were held in 1972. The park was filled with trees and benches and flowers just like every park, as well as massive vacant stadiums where you couldn't help but picture how spectacular it must have been back when it was packed with thousands of people from all over the world to watch the best athletes of the time compete. In the park we found a little flee market. We walked through it in search of a dirndl to where the next day at the festival. No one at the marked spoke a word of english but we still managed to communicate through hand motions. All three of us left with the perfect dirndl for the occasion. I went and got a brat and a beer from a stand in the park. After we headed into downtown Munich. The city was full of bars and shops and tall grand buildings with flowers sticking out of the side. We made it to the market in the center of town and it was filled with people. We sampled different cheese spreads and salsas as we weaved our way through the masses. I woke up early the next morning got dressed in my new dirndl. I went into town to get a coffee and bagel and to walk the streets again. The city was much calmer in the morning. Around 10:30 we headed into the actual festival. It was huge. It was like a fair but cleaner and bigger and better. There were pretzels and brats and creeps and chocolate covered everything. We headed straight for the beer tent in the back right as the gun shots sounded to indicate that the kegs were tapped. They were handing out free beers from the first keg and I managed to wiggle my way through the heard six feet tall German men and somehow come out with one of the first beers. We did not reserve a table ahead of time but we were quickly invited by a group of guys to join them. We spent a few hours in that tent talking to our new friends, then we went out to explore more of the festival. I tried a pretzel then a sandwich then a brot and then decided I was ready to try to find another tent. We met a new group of people that let us join there table for a while and we had a blast hanging out with them. Finally at the end of the night Benji and I went on the Farris Wheel. At the top was the first time I really saw the enormity of the festival and every inch of it was packed with people. I couldn't believe we had spent all day wondering around this park and I hadn't even covered a third of it.
On Sunday I had the opportunity to be reunited with my childhood Au Pair. I was only 1 when Susan lived with my family so I did not have any actual memories of her, but my family talks about her so much that it felt like I knew her. I was sitting on a bench looking down the street when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked over to see Susan standing there with tears in her eyes saying, "my baby Lexi". I spent the rest of the day with Susan up until I had to leave for the airport. She told me stories about when she lived with my family, I updated her on how everyone was doing, and she told me about her family. She at one point made the comment about the four hour drive to come see me that "it was just a trip to mimi and papas" I always thought I was the only person in this world who measured her driving time by how many trips to Mimi and Papas away something is. All my life I never knew there was a woman on the other side of the world, like 7000 trips to Mimi and Papas aways using this same strange unit of measure as me.
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