Oktoberfest



One of my best pals Molly has spent the past 5 years living and working in Germany and thus she's a bit of an Oktoberfest expert which is lucky for me since she was our gracious host and guide for the time we were in Germany.

Once it was decided that this would be the year to make the trip to Germany to visit Molly it was a pretty easy decision to plan the trip to coincide with Oktoberfest. Mike and me both like beer, and thought Oktoberfest would be a real experience, and obviously thought it would be great to do Oktoberfest when we would have Molly there to be our trusty translator and tour guide. So I would say I was definitely looking forward to Oktoberfest, but not really more than other parts of our trip.

This friends, was a huge miscalculation. Here's what I would tell you: take the amount of fun you think you'll have at Oktoberfest and then just go right ahead and double it, or triple it, and that's how much fun it is. I mean that seriously. I was excited about Oktoberfest but now looking back I can see that I so totally underestimated how great it would be.

I was picturing it being somehow dominated by Americans and other tourists with very few Germans present. In fact, while there are clearly people from all over the world there, it does still feel like it is a mostly German event. And I think I was also picturing it being somewhat rowdy and unruly, and this really isn't how I would describe it at all. Oktoberfest was much more genteel (?) than I was imagining. Classy isn't the right word here, but it feels very upbeat and silly without being too overwhelming or rowdy.

Here's what's great about Oktoberfest: everyone is in a good mood, everyone is down for a friendly conversation, and everyone is dressed up and singing along to the many up beat songs you hear over and over again throughout the day. The music itself is such a big part of the fun. Every tent has a band (and sometimes people making music with whips (!)  and they play lots of cheerful German folk songs over and over again throughout the day to the point where you think you know the words... even though you don't speak German. In addition to the German folk songs there are also some songs you maybe wouldn't expect, like Country Roads, yes the John Denver song, or Frank Sinatra's New York New York. Such fun.

Also, the tents. They are stunning, and so ornately decorated. It's hard to imagine that they take down and put up the tents each year. Each tent is affiliated with a different brewery and serves just one beer. We tried to hit up a few different tents just to get a feel for the different vibes of the different tents and to try a few of the different beers.

In our 5 days in Munich we spent the better part of 2 days at Oktoberfest, and spent a couple of evenings there as well. That's a lot of time at Oktoberfest, but still I was not Oktoberfested out. When we talk about the trip Oktoberfest is always the highlight, this is impressive since Mike, Kerry and I all have pretty different opinions on what makes a fun trip, but we all loved Oktoberfest. I think if the opportunity presented itself again that I would definitely try to go back to Oktoberfest.


More after the jump









 







Twitter FaceBook

Pin It

1 comment:

  1. this is amazing!! I was hoping there would be a recap and pictures after hearing the story from you. I am so glad I can now imagine you guys in all the glory of those dresses (I forget what they're called) but you look great!

    ReplyDelete

Hitherto All rights reserved © Blog Milk Design - Powered by Blogger