Oktoberfest - Day 1

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How do you know if you had a good time at Oktoberfest? It takes you until 2pm the following afternoon to recover.

Words to describe Oktoberfest: beer, fun, crazy, friendly, raucous, unity, festive, happy...so many things!

We had hoped to be present in the Spaten beer tent for the tapping of the first keg which essentially kicks off Oktoberfest. We arrived at the grounds at around 8:30am. People were already drinking. After standing in a mob for an hour wedged against some younger German boys, Jer and I decided to wander around and see if there was any place in any tent to sit. There were none. I suspect if we'd been dressed in liederhosen and dryndils (I am butchering the spellings, it's too late to care) we'd have found a spot. No matter.

I grew very, very fussy over the three hours of wandering we had. It didn't help that we'd only had a couple of sandwiches for breakfast and I was thirsty, too. Jer finally secured us a seat in a different Spaten beer garden. The fellas at the table were *awesome*. They were from London. We had a good time chatting with them and drinking our coca-cola (Jer) and lemonade (mine). We were joined by a nice German brother and sister, and later on by another German and an Austrian.

We had such a good time hanging out and having fun that we lost complete track of time. It was getting dark by the time we realized how late it was. Jer and I had only a plate of spaetzle between us. We were weary, buzzed, and though reluctant to leave, very knackered.

We left the garden and encountered a fight breaking out. A tall American guy had broken it up, but as soon as the two guys were about twenty feet away they got into it again. Jer ran over to break up the fight this time. The guy Jer pulled back, who had been swinging at the other fighter, tried swinging a punch at Jer. He was pinned by Jer against the chain link fence. He kept struggling to fight. So Jer made him catch the ground with his face. He literally knocked the sense back in him. The fighting guy's friend ran up, Jer said, "Alles gut?" The friend said yes, and Jer let the fighting guy go. He then had to pop into the bathrooms to wash the blood off his hands. The blood was the other guys' and not Jer's thank goodness.

The tall American guy--Greg--was amused by Jer's enthusiasm. I explained that Jer isn't into fighting but is willing to break them up. We chatted, found out he comes to Oktoberfest regularly, and that his friend is a Spaten distributor. We talked of Seattle, Feierabend and Prost. We explained that Feierabend is our favorite bar. And then we found ourselves walking across the Oktoberfest grounds on our way to meet the owners of Prost. We were ushered into the Spaten tent we'd unsuccessfully tried to enter hours before, were handed beers and shared the company of some very kind people.

The rest of the night was a crazy, fabulous blur. The tent was *packed* and everyone was singing. They knew all of the songs. One confused us, though: Who the f**k is Alice?

It was a good time. I can see why Oktoberfest has carried on for 200 years, give or take a few of those years. It's not just about the beer (though beer is very essential to the equation); it's about meeting people, relaxing, and enjoying the simpler things in life. It seems to be the Munchen way.

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