Munich Part 2 - Oktoberfest

---

So finally after our fiasco of driving into Munich the vans unloaded and my simple instructions were, "Be back here in six hours." Sometimes I feel like protecting the soldiers from any little bad thing that could possibly happen. It must be the motherly side of me, so at times it takes everything I have to just let them go and have a good time without me. Plus, I needed to start enjoying my partial day off.

The challenges of traveling in a foreign country are always lurking around each corner. How do you make the parking meters work, where did we really park, why don't they speak more english, and did I really bring soldiers to the worlds largest beer drinking festival? Oh my. Oktoberfest in Munich Germany, what a dream, what an opportunity and how mean is that for a bunch of soldiers who are forbidden from drinking. Tee Hee!

Before we had left I jumped online and wanted to check to see if any issues had reported at the Oktoberfest festival to date. This is the only report I could find in english:..."With the end of the first week of the Oktoberfest, it is time for the halftime-resumé - and it’s a success: 3.3 million people visited the Oktoberfest and drank almost 3.3 million liters of beer, as aoopsed to 3.2 million visitors in 2008, who drank 3.1 million liters of beer. More people bring more hunger and so the number of eaten oxens rose from 56 to 60. The numbers of sold non-alcoholic drinks rose 15%. Still, the global financial crisis took its toll and mostly hit souvenir-vendors and caroussels. “People are setting priorities on what to spend their money for,” said Gabriele Weishäupl, head of the Oktoberfest management. And priority number one is obviously beer. Munch mayor Chritian Ude joked, that this was the only press conference, where he was happe to have no big news to announce at all. No scandals, no bad news, that it was “Just a nice Oktoberfest!”

So as we entered the gates to the Oktoberfest it was like this giant wave of people. They were everywere and we all just stood in one place and took in the sites in front of us. People young and old were wearing the traditional dress, there were hats of all kinds and it most definately had a Bavarian flare to it. Maybe I didn't really know what to expect, but I was suprised by the craziness of the carnival atmosphere.

Not only was there more beer than I have ever seen, they were very open about how they were drinking it. Big beer mugs that took two hands to hold, many people were toasting each other just like in the movies and there seemed to be no posted rules. I was put off a tad by the youngness of the beer participants. Adult supervision was lacking in many of the public venues within the confines of the festival itself.

On the other hand, the carnival rides were absolutely on the edge. I would doubt that OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Association) had done a site visit to the Oktoberfest festival. It seemed like all the rides were geared to spin you upside down and sideways all at the same time. Most of the rides were new to all of us, and just like any good tourists we would just stand and watch with our mouths wide open. Most of us muttering something to the effect, "There is no way you would catch me on that one!" So here we were big brave soldiers, terrified of the whirly bird on steroids.

We had visitied our first ATM machine so that we could have some euros instead of the good ole dollar, and now we had what looked like play money with beautiful colors. The exchange rate isn't the greatest right now so needless to say we got less back much less than what we put in. Like all good soldiers stationed at a military post the first thing we ran to spend our money on was...FOOD!

It was everywhere. Funnel cakes, schnitzel, cotton candy and these gargantuan bratworsts! These were so big that they made the foot long hot dog look small and we were all over them. It's so easy to make soldiers happy. Then we had a few chocolate dipped strawberries and gummi bears. Now for sure I wasn't going to ride any of those loopty doo rides.

I was really out of my element, this festival of beer, rides and crazy crowds was quite the event to experience but it wasn't much different than what we experience back in the states. Except...it was so big I do believe that it would have been comparable to every North Dakotan showing up to the fair at the same day. Thousands upon thousands, it was just a bit too much for my fun meter. Watching people and how they interacted cultural needed to be done in some other environment. A few of us (older) soldiers decided we would depart the Oktoberfest and walk the mile back to the mini vans so we could feed the parking meeting. Last words I said to the Oktoberfest stayers was, "I'll be right back."

Little did I know the adventure that we would be undertaking...

---