Oktoberfest

We spent one glorious day at Oktoberfest. I'm not sure how people do this for longer than that. After 2.5 liters of beer I was ... yea. And that was at noon.


But I get ahead of myself. Let me give you a fuller picture: We took an overnight bus from Prague and arrived in Munich at 5 am. We showered (one of the cleanest, warmest, and highest water pressure showers of the trip so far, FYI) in the train station. This is a crucial detail because in line for the shower (yes at 5 am there was a line - though we were the only ones in it who had slept at all the night before or not chosen to don lederhosen for the occasion) we met a man who advised us to try the Augustiner or Hofbrau tents (best beer, best crowd, respectively).

We headed to the fair grounds (now 8:30 am) and the first sight was the Augustiner tent as it was opening. We took shower-guy's advice and filed in. By 9 am there was not a single seat in the tent left. Had we meandered naively from tent to tent there would have been no sitting all day long.

The oom-pah-pah band doesn't get going until noon, so from 9 am until then the crowd makes its own music. We gathered they were singing mostly futbol team songs. Though one oft-repeated tune was definitely the White Stripes. Even this was infectious. When the crowd was not sufficiently boisterous, a man in a chef's outfit mounted the bandstand and chugged a liter of beer, inspiring us all. Once the band began to play there was no need of encouragement. At least half the room of thousands were standing on chairs and tables cheering and singing and prost!ing at any given time from there on out.

There were gigantic pretzels and other baked goods available earlier on, but we waited until the late morning to sample the rotisserie chicken (omg so good). It is at this point that my memory of events becomes less precise. I know that at some point I lost my umbrella.

All in all, the whole thing was amazing. Diehards will no doubt judge my one day in one tent lacking, but we had a blast.


xoxo Jessie