Beer and Boobs

Most people think that Switzerland is going to have excellent beer. The kind you can drink in quantities that would kill a bull elephant and still feel fresh the next morning, because the ingredients are purity defined. I expected this also, and felt certain that the water would be sought only from the most pristine of the highest mountain tops while the barely and hops would be collected from quaint valleys, by angelic Christian children who’d never known the sin of a five knuckle shuffle.

Once again, my impressions have been pissed on. Almost literally in this case. The standard beer here has more chemicals than George Bush’s wet dreams. I wake most mornings after a night out feeling like I’ve been drinking a mixture of petrol, asbestos and the tears of dying children.

That’s not to say there aren’t excellent beers around, just not in the variety or availability that one would expect of somewhere that is so close to Bavaria. Talking of which, I have enthusiastically booked tickets for this years Oktoberfest. This time I have set myself the challenging target of coming away with some memory past 5pm, but considering the stiff competition I’ll be facing in the form of litre upon litre of some of the world’s strongest lager, I’ll be content with not soiling myself before 7pm.

Last year was a truly spectacular experience. The first time you look down the hilled road and see before you the aircraft-hanger sized tents, stretching one after another out towards the horizon, and you realise, in an epiphanal moment, that those fuckers are filled to the rafters with the finest lager you’ve ever tasted….well, it was enough to make me fall to the floor and weep joyously, thankful beyond words.

Once you are picked off the floor by understanding locals, and you make your way through the uncountable throngs of people to the tent of your choice, it takes a frustratingly long time to actually get in. The policy as I understood it, is that as one individual in the tent keels over dead, and their body is dragged outside, one more person is allowed in. Last year it took about an hour of waiting, with me impatiently bouncing up and down and anxiously looking at my watch with an irrational frequency before we got in. My god was it worth it though. The tent felt endless, with wooden benches filling every conceivable space and each bench crammed to bursting with men, women, boys and girls. As well as having all possible spaces taken on the seats, each had at least 5 people stood on the tables themselves, invariably either passionately singing along to the orchestral Oompah band, or beating the living shit out of each other. The security were taking a relaxed approach to say the least, generally allowing the fights to pitter out as the participants forgot what they were hitting each other for and wandered off for another beer. Did I mention this was 11am by the way?

As if this wasn’t about as close to any heaven anyone could possibly experience, I started to notice something else, something so truly wondrous that I may yet be turned to the path of religion. Cleavage. It was everywhere. Each way I turned there were bouncing breasts desperately attempting to escape the minimal confines of their traditional dirndl, like puppies fighting in a sack. Around that time I must have passed out, but this year I’m taking a video camera.