I survived Oktoberfest!! You will all be happy to know, I’m sure, that I returned to Geneva safe and sound last Monday after a weekend of debauchery in Munich, where I celebrated the ## Oktoberfest beer festival. Truly, it was an adventure.
I and 4 other nannies rented a car, drove 6 hours from Geneva, through Switzerland, to Munich, where we camped in an old stadium with hundreds of other festival-goers for 2 nights. The drive wasn’t bad. I made sure that I was the one driving when we crossed into Germany so that I could experience the thrill of driving on a highway with no speed limit. To be honest, that was a little scary—the highway is very poorly lit, and while I was travelling quite fast there were others who sped past like I was standing still; I hope they were experienced enough not to kill themselves.
Anyway, we arrived at the campsite around 3am and settled down to get some sleep before waking up at 7:30 to go get in line with the rest of the alcoholics at one of the dozen or so “beer tents” set up on the fairgrounds. These beer tents are not actually tents; they are enormous barn-like halls with wall-to-wall picnic tables and (thank goodness) indoor plumbing. Because it was the first day of the festival, it was necessary to line up early to make sure that we managed to get into a tent and get a table. Despite that we were seated by 10:15, we did not actually get our first round of beers until about 12:30—first we had to observe the parade of beer-maidens, horses, traditional German bands and so on, all leading to the ceremonial tapping of the first keg. Only then did our waitress (“beer-wench” as one guy next to us put it) come bearing 10 liter-size glasses of Paulaner beer (Paulaner was the sponsor of our particular tent; a local brewer). Seriously, I felt like a kid with a sippy cup because the huge, full glass was too heavy to support one-handed. The very nice foursome of British people who we had allowed to take the unused end of our table bought the first round, which was a nice bonus. After a hearty ‘Prost!” we all commenced drinking.
Looking around at the time, I couldn’t help thinking that the atmosphere of the place was truly wonderful—everyone was drinking, yes, but no one was being rude or obnoxious, everyone was so obviously there to have a good time. Every so often the band in the middle of the room would start a traditional song that all of the German people knew and the everyone in the tent would stand up and sing, pretending (in my case, at least) to have some idea what we were toasting/singing about. It was phenomenal. The afternoon was a little bit ruined when someone stole my purse with all of my money, but after a little time I philosophically decided that it was just money and not the end of the world, and I moved on. We were at the beer tent until about 8pm—a hearty 7+ hours of fun, not including the time waiting in line that morning. We left to get meter-long bratwursts at the food stands outside, and then somehow managed to get on the right subway to go back to the campsite. In the bar set up at the campsite (yes, there was a bar there too—just in case one needed to drink even more after leaving the fairgrounds), I was forced to dance—literally dragged from the table—by an Italian guy named Flavio. He and his friends were the worst dancers I have ever seen, but my girlfriends and I decided to just run with it and dance just as badly as they did. It was great fun, even though Flavio spoke no English and so could only say my name, which he yelled over and over again to no one in particular.
The next morning, none of us really felt like drinking anymore. We wandered around the fairgrounds a bit in the morning, and then went off to explore Munich a bit. Truly, it is a gorgeous city. My perception of German culture as utilitarian, harsh and to the point made me think that a German city would be kind of bland and stark, but Munich has so much romanticism, so many beautiful buildings. We started at the Glockenspiel, which is an amazing example of neo-gothic architecture—though I must say the world-renowned clock in it is a bit of a let-down. We happened to get information for a free bike-tour of Munich; and American guy founded the company 6 years ago, and he runs it, quite well apparently, just on tips from the participants. I’m so glad that we did the tour. Not only did I face my long-standing fear of riding a bike, but we got to see far more of Munich than we otherwise would have, and our tour-guide (the founder of the company) was great a telling history in an entertaining and fun way. We stopped half way through the tour at the Hoffenbrau beer garden—the second largest in Munich, and in the world, seating more than 9000 people, while the largest (also in Munich) seats 14.5 thousand. I know that on first thought, stopping for a (or several) beers in the middle of a bike tour sounds like a bad idea, but all’s well that ends well and no one was seriously injured. My friends and I all had a conservative half liter beer, so we were fine, if a little giggly, after that.
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