Thursday Night: Having unloaded our gear in the hostel, we stepped out into Riga's Old Town for a few beers and something to eat. After wandering for a bit, we settled on a decent looking Irish pub. There's nothing particularly noteworthy to speak of about the pub, except to say that it was filled with vacationing Irishmen who were totally plastered, playing fooseball quite terribly, and harassing the terrified waitresses every chance they got. At one point, one of them was tossed out of the bar. Fortunately, our politeness went a long way towards winning the favor of the waitresses, who focused their attention on us far more than the drunks. So that was nice.
After leaving the pub, we went in search of a more relaxing place to drink. I don't remember the name of the bar we settled on, but I do recall that it was fantastic. They played every single song that I wanted to hear. That is one good thing about traveling through Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In large part, they're still stuck in the 90s, so if you're someone who grew up with 90s music, then you can turn on almost any radio station and hear the music of your youth. We hung around for a few drinks until the music started to change and people around us began to make out. After that, we grabbed our coats and walked back to the hostel for a well-deserved night's sleep.
Friday: Having taken the bus to Riga the night before, we were fortunate that we didn't have to get up early. We took our time in the shower, packed up, and took the absurdly long tram ride to the airport. Not much of a hassle there, except for Ali holding up the security line owing to a suspicious looking hair brush in her bag. We queued up for the shuttle to the plane, and when it was time to board, everyone went on a total free-for-all. If you're not familiar with Ryan Air, then be aware that there are no assigned seats on their flights. Basically you just get off the shuttle and push your way through the aisle until you find a decent seat. I took an aisle seat in the very last row, Max was crammed in somewhere nearby, and Ali was somewhere way up front. I have no idea how that happened. We settled in for the flight, and about two uneventful hours later we landed in Germany.
The trip had started getting awesome the night before when we settled into our super-friendly hostel and found that great bar. Once in Hahn, they got even more awesome. Our immediate goal was to find the car rental place, which we did, only to find out that our hatchback wasn't ready. They did tell us that there was an alternate vehicle available for basically the same price if we were willing to take that. Not really caring about the car as long as it was cheap and got us to Munich, we said fine. We hopped into the shuttle van and drove the three minutes to the car lot. There we were confronted with our reasonably priced rental: A basically new Mercedes-Benz. Europeans may not understand how sweet this is. In the US, a Mercedes is considered a high-priced luxury car. If you want to rent one, you usually have to request it, and you're damn sure going to have to pay a high price for it. The fact that they just gave the keys to three twenty-something American students for the same price as an Opal was a little bit overwhelming. We were pumped.
Little happened on the road. What was supposed to be a drive of just a few hours slowly stretched into one of 6-7 hours, mostly due to traffic making its way to Munich. Again, this was not a big deal because we had a sweet Mercedes. It was getting late by the time we finally arrived at our campsite. We went into the registration center/beer hall and got our tent assignment. Throwing our packs into the tent, we went back inside the beer hall for our first liter of Oktoberfest beer. Something cool happened right from the start. Shortly after we cleared off some space on one of the benches, a Swiss guy with a Jimmy Johnson NASCAR leather jacket sat down next to me. We struck up a conversation, naturally asking each other about our hometowns. He told me the name of a town in Switzerland, which sadly I can't remember. I told him I was from near Washington D.C.. This isn't exactly true of course, but I find that it saves a lot of time in conversation to tell people that I'm from the D.C. area, since most likely many Europeans have never heard of Richmond. In this case, I was mistaken. The Swiss man, whose name I've since forgotten, told me that though he'd never been to Washington, he HAD been to a city just a couple hours south of there where his best friend lived. It was called Richmond, had I ever visited? I chuckled and told him that I was in fact from Richmond. He went further, by saying that his friend actually wasn't from the city, but lived in an area just to the west. He couldn't remember the name, but it started with an M. By this point I was pretty much floored. The Swiss man's best friend was not only from Midlothian (my hometown), he also lived in Woodlake (my neighborhood). This guy's best friend lived about three minutes away from me.
With my mind sufficiently blown, Ali and Max dragged me away so that we could take the train to downtown Munich and see some of the nightlife. Of course, we had to find the train first.
*In the next installment, our heros get lost unintentionally exploring the water drainage system of Munich, drink beer, and nearly die of exposure! Will they survive? (yes) Stay tuned!*
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