"There's no such thing as "Scotch-toberfest" "You used me Skinner!"

You get a million points if you can name what season of the Simpsons that quote is from.

So It's Sunday night on what was a long and eventfull weekend. On Wednesday night I hopped on a plane heading toward Munich, Germany. Finally I can celebrate the harvest the way it was meant to be celebrated, with buckets upon buckets of beer, also liederhosen. We came into the airport at about 10:30 at night and decided to take a breather before we headed out of the airport.

I feel it's important to disclose that the Munich Airport is the greatest airport yet to be created by man. Why, you may ask yourself, this high approval? Is it the architecture? The design? The functionality? No. They give you free good coffee, tea, tv screens, newspapers and lovely seating. FREE, HEAR THAT, FREE. GOOD. COFFEE. We were enjoying that so much that we didnt realize that they close the airport at midnight. So we spent our first night in the airport, sleeping in the lovely seats. We slowly made it farther towards the exit only to realize that we never got our passports stamped. Worried that we were now illegal aliens we tried to find a security guard, eventually we did, but she didnt speak english particularly well and instead just watched us as we puttered around looking for a way to get back into the restriced section. To no avail. But in the morning we found out that there are open borders in the EU for flight passengers...apparently.

At 5 we got to our hostel and decided to look around the town of Munich. Not really sure what there was to see, we found our way to the Glockenspeil ( A giant coo-coo-clock ), The Royal Palace, A Cathedral and some beautiful gardens. We also found a giant fish statue which, naturally, I stuck my head in. The resulting pictures may be going on the cover of my autobiography.
A little after noon we made it to Oktoberfest, which is essentially a Giant Fair with rides, booths and tents. It was a little surreal but I liked it. I think my favorite part was the Liederhosen. You would think that Liederhosen would be a thing of the past, like the English wearing the wide frilly collars but no my friends, Liederhosen is alive and well. About 75% of the people at the fest were wearing them, the women were wearing "Dirdels" which is the female equivelent.
Now before we left, Bridget's father had told her "there is no need to buy a "mas" right away, you can drink a pint first and take your time" So being wise and mature the first thing we did was order 3 mas and drink them as fast as we could.
(A "Mas" is essentially a liter of beer.)

Maybe it was the fact that we slept in an airport, but after 3 hours of revelry and brautwurst we were ready to go to take a nap. Bridget and I decided to go back to the Hostel, Bryan wanted to stay. She and I got home and fell asleep, by the time we woke up, Bryan had gotten home and there was another person in our room. Her name was Carissa, she was Australian and had checked in while we were asleep. Her first words being (phonetically) "I sawe these two liying hear and I thought, 'Why aer'nt thei at Ocktoberfest?'" So we laughed and all went together to the train station for dinner.

The next morning we got up early for day two, We went to the "haufbrau" house, where most of the tourists go to drink. We hadnt reserved seats but got into the standing section that was right next to the band. We made a few friends from Cologne (I think they were Heidrich and Jan) and met some Americans studying in Florence. There is nothing quite like a day filled with loud Germans singing "Take me Home Country Road". (I submit that most Germans would'nt know exactly where West Virigina is if not for Mr. John Denver) Before we knew it we had to get back to the airport, did a drive-by look at the Olympic stadium and the BMW factory, got on the plane (barely) and made it back to Rome.

It was kind of comforting to hear the language I kind of know after hearing a language I had no idea about for a few days. Country Road take me Rome.

Saturday, we ventured out to Hadrian's Villa or the "Villa Adriana" as the Italian's say.

Hadrian's Villa was designed and constructed by the Roman Emporer Hadrian as a means to escape the heat (both physical and politcal) of Rome, and eventually moved his whole court there. An early Versailles if you will. Hadrian used the Villa as a testing ground for one of his favorite past-times, Architecture. Many of the structures he designed were based off of places he had seen in his travels across the empire, though with his own particular spin on them. There is a story that when Hadrian was working on his designs, a prominent architect mocked them by saying all of his domes looked like pumpkins and that they would never hold the statues he invisioned to be there. Hadrian had him exiled and eventually killed. Hadrian does not take a bad-crit well.
I had read about the Villa in Architectural Theroy papers and in Art History but did'nt understand the draw until I got there. It was amazing, a sprawling landscape that is molded by thick red brick in the most amazing shapes. Things that can be found nowhere else in Rome. The structures are so picturesque that I don't know if I can describe them. They almost dance around the 300 acres. There is no rigid grid or mode of organisation, this is clearly a work-in progress that's imperfections lead to it's charm.
I don't know if I'll go back though, because it was 3 hours away and 3 hours back, so techincally we spent more time traveling there than we did at the Villa, but I guess when you rule the world you can afford to put your Villa really far away.

Today we went to the Vatican museum. It was free day (the last sunday of the month the museum is free) and was absolutely packed. I mainly avioded the crowds by attempting to stay away from the Sisteen Chapel.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7639/1318/1600/27.jpg
(not done by me)

But I did get to see some great early-christian art as well as the last Painting of Raphael (who died suddenly in his 30's) and some beautiful Renaissance and Baroque. I think my favorite though was Laocoon. The statue of the doomed man of Troy who tried to explain to his country men that putting a suspiciously large Wooden Horse directly in the center of their ungarded city may be a tad unwise.

http://www.brynmawr.edu/gradgroup/historyofart/images/GSEM679images/Laocoon.jpg

Then this happened. Who saw that comming? Not me, and certianly not Laocoon.

Slowly but surely I had to go to the Sisteen Chapel, but along the way I stopped by the Raphael rooms. Heliodorus was under reconstrucion so I was pretty dissapointed but the School of Athens was better than I expected. However this is when people started using flash photography, which makes me mad beyond all comprehension. They take flash pictures of priceless frescoes and that's why they need to be repaired every few years, then no one can enjoy them. It pisses me off. Don't do it.

The Modern Art area of the Vatican museum was pretty interesting, I image Pope John Paul had a lot to do with picking out the collection because most of the work had a very similar aesthetic. There were a lot of very sophisticated pieces, but for the most part, a little to angular for my liking.

The Sisteen Chapel was packed, I don't understand why people can't just be quite in a chapel, especially after they make anouncements in 15 languages, really loud. Also I'm thinking of just leading a campaign to destroy flashes on cameras except with people who can prove to be responsible. BYO Baseball Bat. I felt the urge to kill rising, which I'm pretty sure is blasphemus that close to the Pope, so I left. It was beautiful. Let's remember how beautiful it was.

Overall a great experience.

Now it's time for bed. Goodnight! :)