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Published: September 24th 2007
Donna
This is our waitress from day 1. Her name is Donna. She can carry 10 steins at once. Full. She said she starts working out a month before Oktober Fest begins just so she will be ready. This past weekend was the most fun I have had in a long time. Certainly since I have been here in Europe. Friday night my roommates and I had a small dinner and invited our neighbors over. We made Mexican food, or as Mexican as we could with things were could find here. Our neighbors speak very very little English and had never had Mexican food before. It was pretty interesting meeting them, and I think they like us. Our friend Andi, who is Hungarian, came over as well and helped translate some. She said they liked us, and that the boys who lived in our apartment before us puked on their door. So unless we puke on their door, I think we will stay on their good side. And honestly, there are so many cooler placed to puke.
Saturday morning I woke up really really early and headed out for the airport. It was so early it was still dark out. Not cool. I arrived in Germany around 8:30 and made the mistake of taking a cab into the city. I asked to see if there was a cheaper mode of travel, but I obviously asked the wrong person. I
Candy Apples
Here we are with our Candy Apples! They were soooooooo good! Isn't Elaine's hat pretty rockin' as well? found out later that there was a subway that went directly to where I wanted to go. Fortunately I was able to take the subway back to the airport the next day and not waste any more money. It was really crazy being somewhere that’s on the Euro after having lived on Forints for the past month. I spent quite a lot of money just on existing, you know, things like food and water. I felt like I was spending SO MUCH money, but the girls I was with have been living in France, and they said that it was nothing! I am really glad I am not living somewhere on the Euro.
I met up with two girls from UCSD at the hotel we were staying at. Marni and Elaine are both going to school in Paris, Elaine was one of my roommates last year and Marni is a mutual friend. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and headed off to watch the parade.
Let me explain Oktober Fest real quick. Oktober Fest is basically a giant party dedicated to beer, and while it is called Oktober Fest it actually begins in September. I guess they anticipate
Little Girls
I guess they start them young here in Germany. These cute little girls are waving flags representing their favorite beer brewer. For real! people not being able to follow a schedule because opening day consists of two things, a parade at 11 and the official Tapping of the Keg at noon. After that, it is just mayhem and madness.
We began at the parade, which was incredible. All the floats were actually horse drawn carriages, and the horses were beautiful. They were enormous and all decked out. There were bunches and bunches of marching bands and each float was dedicated to a type of beer. After having watched about 15 minutes of this parade it occurred to us that it was all about beer. I hadn’t really given that much thought until then. There were families everywhere and children marching in the parade or ridding on floats. It really is a different world here sometimes. I cannot imagine marching in a beer parade as an eight year old, but there were tons of them!
We left the parade a little bit early to try and get to the Keg Tapping on time, but it was so crowded we didn’t even get close. At 12 exactly as they tapped the keg they shot off what sounded like a cannon or something and that’s when
Marni And Elaine
Here are Marni (Left) and Elaine (not left). We were waiting for the parade to begin. everything just went crazy. Apparently they don’t serve any beer until then so as soon as it was tapped everyone just went beer crazy. There are 14 “Tents” set up that people drink and eat in. They are really more like giant buildings, and each one has their own specialty. Marni, Elaine and I just walked around and first without going into a tent. A lot of the floats were lined up along the street and we were able to take pictures with some of the horses. We also bought these heart shaped ginger cookies that said fun things in German. Marni’s said “Magic Mouse” and mine said “Sexy Mouse”, Elaine’s was “Sweet Teddy” (As in Teddy Bear). Of course we have pictures of these for your viewing pleasure.
After walking around for a while we went to one of the tents to try and get in. The first tent we went to was reservations only, and they reservations had to be made at least two years in advance! We went to another tent after that and waited in line for about 15 minutes before they came out and told us that they weren’t letting anyone else in for the
Big Pretzle
I guess Germans just do thing BIG. This thing was bigger than Elaine's head. We ate like....half. Between all of us. rest of the day. At the third tent we were able to get up pretty close to the doors, which were blocked off and being guarded by bunches of security guards. The security guards just stood around smoking and drinking giant beers, so much for not drinking on the job I guess it’s not a problem for them. We waited for about an hour before they opened the doors again, and everyone just rushed in crazy style. The security guards dove in to stop the rush and cut everyone off right in front of us. So we were the first people in line now, but we still weren’t inside. The waiting was really a bummer, and at this point we were overheating and hungry but we couldn’t really go anywhere because as soon as we moved someone else would have taken our spot. A man came around the front of the line selling t-shirts and Marni and Elaine both bought one. We spoke to the guy for a few minutes and he said it would probably be a very long time before they opened the doors again, but after having waited so long already we didn’t want to give up
Parade Float
Here is a pretty pretty parade float. It is advertising....BEER! so we just stayed where we were. About 45 minutes later the t-shirt man came back and saw us, he asked if we still wanted to get in, which we obviously did, and then told us that he could get us in if we wanted. We weren’t going to take him up on it seeing as we had no idea who he was or anything, but then we heard that they weren’t going to open the doors for another 3 hours at least. We figured that if he couldn’t actually get us in we would just do something else for the rest of the day. Turns out the guy really could get us in, and he just walked us right by the security guards and into the tent, no problem!
Inside the tent it was a whole different world. There were tons and tons of people just having a crazy time. Elaine, Marni and I pretty much kept to our table but we met tons of people who would just stop by and randomly talk to us. There was a band that would come out every half hour or so and play a song, but they played the same four
Marching Band
This is one of about a million marching bands. Nice outfits, huh? or so songs over and over all day. The beer served in this tent was served in the obligatory liter steins and was brewed right there specifically for Oktober Fest. It was 8%, and there were no added preservatives. It was basically the best beer I have ever had, and ever hope to have again. I got about seven different recommendations for meat I had to try while in Germany, and I was unable to try any of them. This of course simply means I will have to go back to Germany before I head back home. I did have some amazing chicken though; it was perfect and wonderful and went great with the beer. I think they did that on purpose.
We left the tent around 9:00 and headed back to the hotel. On the way we stopped and got chocolate covered apples. I will compare every other candy apple I ever eat back to this one. It was just that good. We went back to the same place the next day, and they were still just as amazing.
Sunday was just kind of a repeat of Saturday; we even ended up in the same tent. It was much
Big Horses
Here are some of the big horses. These had fuzzy legs. Like Leg warmers. But fuzzier. easier to get inside this time around, and the crowd was a little less crazy, but then again it was much earlier in the day. I had a flight back to Budapest at 8, and I had to take the subway to the Airport so we left around 5:00. It was definitely my best weekend so far. I really enjoyed seeing Marni and Elaine, it was nice to see some familiar faces after so long. And they speak English! I took about half a million pictures and videos over the course of the weekend. I may be able to put the videos on here as well, but I’m not 100% sure. I cannot go back and edit these posts after I publish them so hopefully it will work the first time around. Also, any random typos or sideways photos? Yea, no editing once it’s published. I try to get them all the first time but ya always miss some.
So, without further ado, I give you Oktober Fest 2007!
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Elaine
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Cool Hat
My hat is awesome......I better not be sensing any sarcasm from you about it!