Last night, I got back from a nice vacation to Europe. Had I not donated my camera to Germany, I would post some pictures, but what can ya do…
I spent the first 4 days in Varna, Bulgaria. Actually, it was Golden Sands which is a small town outside of Varna. It’s located on the Black Sea and has become quite a nice European resort town in the last few years. I stayed in a nice hotel along the sea and can definitely see myself going there again. Unfortunately, it was out of season by about two weeks, so next time I’ll probably go in July or August. As far as I know, I was the only American in Golden Sands. It seemed that Germans tend to holiday there the most. As far as the food goes, it was pretty amazing in my opinion. They serve a lot of fire roasted meats (pork, chicken, etc) and use earthenware to keep the meals nice and toasty.
After Golden Sands, I took a short one hour flight to Sofia. Sofia is Bulgaria’s capital and is a nice sized city. After checking into my room and taking a short nap, I was ready to just hang out in my room with my book. I headed down to the hotel restaurant for a pretty tasty dinner and afterward went to the hotel bar for a drink. While I was there, I was overheard talking with the bartender a little by a guy from the States. Turns out that he is a director who was in town doing a feature film for the sci-fi channel. I have to admit that it was pretty nice to speak English with someone and we ended up hanging out that night. So instead of chilling out in my room, I ended up going out till 4am. The next night, I had a traditional Bulgarian meal and followed it up by going out to different bars & clubs… yet another late night, this time I got home around 6am.
A short rest later, and I found myself on a 2 hour flight to Munich. I got into the hotel after a quick detour to a small town outside of Munich (a bit of a miscommunication between the cabby and myself) and shortly met with Kevin and Jason. Little did I know that they were coming from a stadium where they had purchased 3 tickets to a game that night. So, I had just enough time to put some shorts on before heading out to the Allianz Arena for a soccer match (between 1860 and FC St Pauli). The game was awesome… the energy level at soccer games far exceeds what I’ve experienced at football and baseball combined. Later that night, we went to Hofbrau House for a couple beers and some excellent food. We got to the grounds around 8am on Saturday, but weren’t prepared for how busy it was going to be. After watching the opening day Oktoberfest parade, we got into the Hippodrome tent. Note to self… it’s considered an insult to try to pay a guard to get in. We hung out in the Hippo for around an hour and even ran into the old servers that we met the last time. But they were unable to help us find a seat for all 5 of us (Phil, Whitney, Kevin, Fox and myself). So, we all left the grounds and headed to the Viktualienmarkt beer garden. The Viktualienmarkt beer garden serves beer from all 6 of Munich’s largest breweries, whereas other beer gardens only serve one type of beer. Unfortunately, the night’s festivities resulted in me losing my camera… For the last day, we got up early again and headed to the Hacker Pschorr tent. We easily got into it without a bracelet, and shared a nice table with some Germans. Phil and I ended up being the last people to hang out, and decided to ride a coaster before leaving the grounds around midnight.
Anyway… that’s the gist of the trip. I was pretty wrecked from Oktoberfest, and am just feeling better today.