Oktoberfest

I do realize that it has been over a month since the last blog, and my apologies for that. Things have really started to pick up around here. Matt and I are finally finding our place in Amsterdam. With Matt playing rugby and taking Dutch lessons and my writing workshop and book club and various other disturbances, we don't have much down time anymore. But I promise to make a better effort.

Nevertheless, the blog you have all been waiting for..

Oktoberfest - Munich, Germany.
First, some history: The first Oktoberfest was held in the year 1810 in honor of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began on October 12, 1810 and ended on October 17th. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated and, later, the festival was prolonged and moved forward into September.By moving the festivities up, it allowed for better weather conditions. Because the September nights were warmer, the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents. Thus it has become the Oktoberfest of today which we all know and love.
The Bavarians regard Oktoberfest as the fifth season. There is autumn, winter, spring, summer, then Oktoberfest. And as any other proper season, Oktoberfest commands its own attire. This picture was taken around midnight on Thursday night, as Matt and I boarded the metro from Munich airport to our hotel. What a welcome! We giggled and took some incognito shots of these fine ladies, all the while reminding ourselves that soon enough, we will be in their beer-stained shoes.

Being that we experienced some delays, we didn't get to our hotel until past midnight, and we were beat. The next morning we wake up to a beautiful German day. We head out to the city center, grab some sausages and tour around briefly before going to the LaSalle office at 1pm. We met some of Matt's coworkers, who were all very friendly and excited. At 2pm sharp, we are at the Hobrauhaus tent. Since LaSalle had made reservations for us, we got in with no trouble. We then were promptly handed 1-liter beer steins. I have never seen beers this big. For those that can't drink a liter of beer at one time, or for those who just need a break from doing so, there is the option of the half beer- half lemonade stein. These look just like beer, so no one is the wiser. They also provide an oft-needed jolt of sugar to keep you awake.

Although we were in that same tent for over 9 hours, time really just flies by in there. We drank liter beers (several of them), we ate half chickens, we danced to stupid songs (notably that dumb West Virigina country roads song), tried our hands at the German language, and met some great people. It was an experience like no other. Then the beer tent closed at 11:30pm and we were forced to leave.

We don't really recall our walk to the subway; we pretty much just followed the mass of people for about a mile. Somehow, we find our way back to our hotel. The next morning my phone starts beeping and ringing around 8am. I was NOT down with that. After a few hours of being annoyed by its incessant beeping but being emotionally unable to leave the bed, I get up to dig around for my phone. I then remember that at some point the night before, one of Matt's collegues from the Munich office had insisted on dancing on the table (even though it's not allowed and the beer maidens kept yelling at her to get down). Inevitably she managed to kick over a beer stein and have a 1/2 liter of beer dump right into my lap and into my purse. Luckily, my phone still worked (I was reconsidering the ''luckily'' at that time though). Anyway, it was my 2 coworkers from Amsterdam calling to get us up to meet them at the fairgrounds. Ugh. More drinking was about the last thing we wanted to do. Nevertheless, we try to get it together, and at around 12:30, we head back to Matt has dubbed ''the house of pain.'' We arrive at the fairgrounds at 1pm, and try to find the tent our friends are in. Once we see it, we see that there is a line at every possible entry/exit to this place. We knew this was the most popular tent, so we decide to try another one, only to find that there are lines to get in everywhere. These people here (in the picture) are waiting on line to get into a tent, and they've been waiting for 4 hours. Those people on the grassy area are not just hanging out, enjoying the nice weather; most of them are passed out drunk. All this going on amongst the little German kids getting pony rides and eating giant cookies. It was quite a bizzare sight. Matt and I continued to stroll around, checking for tents without a line of people snaking out of it, but nothing. We decide to get some beers and sausages. But the kicker of this tent business, is that no beer is sold anywhere else on the fairgrounds! We decide to go back to the city center and find a beer garden there.

Funny interlude: We grab some fries on the way out of the fairgrounds. We reach the metro station, but Matt wants to enjoy his fries outside in the nice weather before we head down to the subway. So we are both standing off to the side, when all of a sudden a unfathomable number of Japanese tourists crowd us. Here we were, in Munich for Oktoberfest, and it was Japanese for as far as our eyes could see (not very far). This non-event has come to be called the Asian invasion. I couldn't let this oddity slip by without a picture. Any other group of tourists would have found it curious to see someone take a picture of another person eating french fries outside the metro station while surrounded by said tourist and all his friends, and perhaps even given me a dirty look for doing so. But being that they were Japanese and love to take ridiculous pictures, they didn't even blink an eye at it. Some even smiled for the camera.

Once we get down to the subway, we quite randomly run into 2 guys Matt knows - one who now works at the LaSalle office in Munich and went to Loyola, and the other his friend. They had also given up on the beer tent idea, and were going back to the city center to buy some leiderhosen and then try a beer garden. It really is true that if you are a guy and not wearing leiderhosen at Oktoberfest, it almost feels like you are missing out on something. With girls it's a bit different, because you just feel bad for these poor women in big, ugly, uncomfortable dresses. But leiderhosen are the perfect beer-drinking attire. Also, the whole costume idea is a funny one. Somehow, dressing up in a silly outfit makes you feel like you are free to behave as stupidly as possible, and yet, still feel ok with yourself the next day. Almost as if the costume excuses you, and just because you weren't dressed like yourself, in reality it wasn't you at all. Like, the costume made you do it, kind of thing.

Saturday night was rather mellow. At around 8pm we head to the real Hofbrauhaus beer hall downtown. This beer hall has some history, since it is where Hitler first began giving his speeches which got him into power. You can still see the swastikas on the ceiling, whose black paint has since been covered up with the blue and white checkers of the Bavarian flag. The beer tents are set up to look like the beer halls, which have rows and rows of picnic tables. To sit down, you just find a free spot to squeeze into. Usually people are very friendly about letting you squeeze in with them. We ended up sitting across from an American couple from California. Also at our table were a German couple, a German father and son and several older guys in atypical costumes. They may have been in some kind of band, but since they didn't speak a word of English, we can't be sure. That didn't stop them from flirting though.

Every 30 minutes or so at a beer hall or beer tent, they play a little dity where everyone at the table has to cheers (''prost!'' is cheers in german). It should be noted that the clinging of 1 liter beer steins is not as dainty as clinging wine glasses. We were a bit worried that at some point we would smash our beers so hard that they would shatter (I would come to find out later that this actually happened to my coworker that weekend). But it really is a great way to meet the people around you.

It didn't take too many liters to get us down Saturday night. Worse yet, by the time Hofbrauhaus closed, there were very little places still serving food. Though we could have gotten food there, we were squeezed into our benches pretty tight, and no one else at our table was eating. So what's the only place open at midnight at every city around the world? Yes, we went to McDonald's. That only added to the general unhealthiness of our trip. Filled with beer and grease, we troll back to the subway and back to our hotel. And to make it all come together, we (or rather, just Matt) became like the ladies on the metro on Thursday night.


Overall, our experience in Bavaria was a fantastic one. Munich is a beautiful city with a great subway system. The beers were tasty. The weather was great. Oktoberfest is definetely an experience that can't be missed. We'll definetely go back . And we recommend any of our friends and family to join us. Prost!