Oktoberfest: Day 1 - Shenanigans Begin

September 25th

We went to Oktoberfest in Munich with our friends John and Savannah.  We got in late the night before so shenanigans didn't really start until the next morning.  We had to acquire tracht for Dan, John, and Savannah.  I acquired mine in Rothenburg on a previous trip to Germany.  Then onto the tents!

 But first, the first beer of Oktoberfest!  Free Lufthansa beer!

Savannah helping John with his lederhosen. 

Oktoberfest!

We met up with Ann and Matt and some of their friends in the Paulaner tent.  

Where we hung out and drank for several hours.

We were not fancy enough to have one of these tables.

Savannah is demonstrating that we are so squished in that we would all be like T-Rexes trying to drink and eat.  

Periodically someone would stand up and try to chug their liter of beer.  

The crowd was not kind if you didn't COMPLETELY finish your beer.

So much beer!

Our weird German friend who was sitting at the end of the table.

I swear I'm not choking Dan.  And I felt bad for pushing Savannah out of a previous photo.

Traditional Oktoberfest songs include Sweet Caroline...

And Hey Baby. 

I have no idea what the guy behind me is doing.

But it doesn't matter because I have beer!

Giant pretzels!

And this guy's amazing hat.

Don't feel left out:

We left the tent to go explore the Oktoberfest rides.  

We may or may not have remembered these events the next day.

Views from the Ferris Wheel:

John fell asleep and we were the terror of the other people in the carriage.

We vacated the ferris wheel and searched for a slide that someone had told John about.

Apparently we decided it was not this slide.

I took my grandma's purse with me because it's a German purse.

John and Dan had a bro-ment (a bro moment).

We decided to go on this ride.

We did not realize, until we got on it, that the individual cars spin.  

This may have been a bad idea.

The search for the fabled slide continued:

We found it!

It's the Toboggan!  So you ride this rubber conveyor belt to the midlevel and the climb the stairs to the top and then slide down on a rug.  I am the only one who didn't fall on the conveyor belt.

Dan did not slide very well and I crashed into him at the bottom, because I slid very well.

This is apparently the hillside where people go when they have had enough.  

We had not had enough so we went downtown to the Hofbräuhaus. 

A little more disheveled than before, but still having a good time.

Savannah made a friend.

John might be done...

I was pretending my pigtail ends were crazy eyebrows.  I might also be done...

So we headed home.

Here we see Savannah and Dan running ahead,  John is trying to stay awake.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Visit to Amalfi

September 21st

My cousin's in-laws came to visit, so I crammed into a car with everyone and we headed to the Amalfi Coast.

Views from and of Maiori: 

Strolling through the town of Amalfi:

I don't know what we're all taking a photo of!

We stopped and had dinner, where Heather freaked out about some bees that were hanging around a little too much. 

Ryan "ruining" my photo.

This church is hidden from the main road.  

You have no idea it's here until you come around the corner.

Sunset photos of Amalfi:

We decided to cut back through the mountains rather than continue the Amalfi Coast drive in the dark.  We passed some dogs leading a herd of goats home for the evening, and stumbled upon this amazing view of Vesuvius:

I was just having fun with my camera for this one.  

This concludes my adventure for today.

Girls' Weekend - Sperlonga Day 2

September 12th

This morning we spent hanging out on the beach.  I'm not very good at this.  I like to walk beaches and swim, not sit out in the sun.  I sunburn like it's the only thing I need to do to win the lottery.  So I walked with Amy a bit, where we determined I was the palest person on the beach, and eventually made it into the water.  Which was cool at first, but pretty nice once you got used to it.

Jen, Amy, and Michelle getting some sun.

We broke for lunch and then wandered over to explore the cave by our campgrounds.

Turns out this area used to be the Villa of Emperor Tiberius in the first century AD.

There's a museum near the cave, or grotto, with pieces recovered from the villa.

This is the Scylla Group.  

It is comprised of several statues depicting Odysseus's battle against the monster Scylla (although no pieces of Scylla were found).  Real pieces have been combined with reproductions in many of the sculptures in the museum.

This is the Polyphemus Group.

It was met with a "well that's a large penis" from Ann.

This sculpture set depicts the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus and his men.

Savannah for scale.

Some of the bones of the villa.  The grotto and villa collapsed around 26 AD.

So many fish!  Of so many sizes!

Apparently they used this for fish farming back in Tiberius's time.

This is where they think the various statue groups were found and would have looked in their original incarnations.  

Approaching the grotto.

Woo photos!

Looking out of the grotto to Sperlonga.

I'm that weird shape in the middle of the photo.

The view of Sperlonga from the path above Tiberius's grotto.

At this point Savannah and I had to leave girls' weekend to head home.  We both had things to get done over the weekend.  The other girls stayed and enjoyed, I hope, shopping and more eating.

This concludes my adventures in Sperlonga.

Girls' Weekend - Sperlonga Day 1

September 11th

I went with some of my friends to Sperlonga for a Girls' Weekend.  We drove up Friday afternoon and stayed in cabins at Camping Nord/Sud.

And then we took a sunset stroll along the beach up to the town:

Groupie!  

Front - Savannah and Jen.

Back - Amy, Ann, Michelle, and Me.

Sunset:

Going....

Going....

Gone!

Super organized beach loungers and umbrellas.

A lamppost and an island in the distance.

Sperlonga!  Jen is over on the upper tier somewhere, I swear.

Savannah and Ann taking sunset photos.  I took a photo of them, because....why not?

Also looking up to Sperlonga. 

I found her!  Jen's the dot on the left-hand side halfway up the photo.....I think....

A photo of where previous photos were taken.  

I'm not sure what this building is supposed to be.  But we climbed it to take photos.

A quaint alleyway.

Before dinner we found this cat.  

Ann informed us, in a supersonic pitch that, he was "makin' da biscuits".  

We enjoyed a lovely dinner outside and then started our way back to our cabins.

There was a concert happening outside the random building from before.

Boats in the marina.

The walkway back down to (and up from) the beach.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Serbia Day 4 - Daws's School

September 7th

We went with Daws to his school this morning before we flew home.  Dan was invited to talk to some of the seniors about nuclear physics....or something.  I hung out in Daws's room and confused a few staff members who came in looking for him.

Some of the school grounds.

I helped prove a math problem for Daws's class.  I was pretty pleased with myself.

We left the school and went back to the apartment where we packed up our things and headed to the airport.

This concludes our adventures in Serbia.