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Published: October 10th 2008
Waitress
She could have carried more that 4 steins to us!I hope to capture all of the exciting things and sites of my experience at the 2008 Oktoberfest in Germany. It is one of the best festivals - hands down. There is nothing like it in the States to compare, but hopefully for my family and friends reading this you will gain some additional insight.
The "Oktoberfest" occurs for 16 days every year in Munich, Germany. It starts out on the third to last Saturday of the month of September and finishes on the first Sunday in October. Several years ago, the organizers moved it up to start in September for better weather conditions.
This year, they expected nearly 6 million visitors to attend the festivities. And, it seemed like there were 6 million people there. Since I had not been to Munich before, it was a busy, clean, friendly, European city with lots of things to do.
The festival is held at the Theresienwiese fairgrounds with carnival rides and all the other food that goes along with it. Then there are the beer "tents" or what really should be called buildings that hold thousands of people. Each tent has a different theme and different beer is served
Oktoberfest Welcome
The welcoming gate for the Oktoberfest at each one. Once you get in the door (if you are lucky too without a reservation), you usually stay because it takes so long to get in. The doors open at 9:00 and shut around 23:00 and from our experience, they usually don't let people in at night without reservations.
Once you get in the door, it is thousands of people sitting or standing on tables chatting or singing the songs the band is playing. In order to be served food or drinks, you have to be sitting at a table. So, after you wait awhile to get in, you have to find someone that is willing to allow you to join them - it is not as easy as it sounds. We were lucky at a couple of the tents to get in when men were leaving and they gave us their wristbands or when we were wearing our the the traditional Bavarian dress.
We broke down and bought the dresses that everyone was wearing around town. Wherever we went in Munich, men and women were wearing the traditional outfits. In some places, you almost felt out of place with jeans and a shirt. So, we
Hippodrom Tent
The so called singles tent of Oktoberfest went to one of the many shops to buy a dirndl (for the women). It is essentially a dress that has a white shirt underneath and the dress has thick straps over the shoulders. The men were wearing the Lederhosen - which were the super smooth, suede shorts, checkered shirts and suede suspenders.
Now all about the beer...it was as good as everyone says but better due to everything around. We visited all of the beer tents or at least we think we did. We might have lost track on a couple of days! The beer was cold when you first started out, but only got cold if you did not drink it fast enough.
At several of the tents we met lots of people and sang songs like YMCA and Sweet Home Alabama, but with German words. In almost every tent we heard the German version of The White Stripes song, Seven Nation Army. Then when the song was not playing, people were humming it everywhere! The other songs were also awkward, because you started to sing the words and it felt like we were terribly off or had too much to drink. As Americans you don't
Hippodrom
The outside of the tent really understand the differences in culture and language until you are thrown into a place with people from all over the world trying to talk to you and having no clue what they are asking you. However, nearly everyone understands the word, beer.
At one of the tents we learned what you say around the world when you clink your glasses together. We learned the Germans say, Proust and have their own drinking games but again, if you understand German you would be far better off because it felt like we were drinking way too much.
Another interesting thing that I can not pass up mentioning is that almost everyone who met us wanted to talk about the American political scene. Even though they did not know very much English, they all knew who Obama & McCain are and who they wanted to win. Some of the guys from Holland we met even woke up at 3 in the morning to watch one of the presidential debates and did not know why we didn't either. Nearly all of the people we met in Germany knew what was going on in American politics and some were even more knowledgable
Hippodrom shop
The souvenir shop inside the Hippodrom. Everyone was wearing the heart shaped necklaces. No idea what they said... than us on the candidates.
Going to Oktoberfest was an amazing experience that I am glad I did not pass up. We met so many people that were not looking to get just drunk, but instead have a good time and enjoy the festivities. If you get an opportunity to go sometime, don't pass it up!
Trisha
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Ninah
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so jealous!
I was just in Munich July 28-August 4 (2009), and we went to the Volkesvest in Pasing (my friend lives there), and reading your blog entry made me remember everything there and the great week we had! This is a great summary-I had pretty much the same experience. Thanks for posting this!