EUROPE & DC '23 • Day 20: Munich, Germany

OKTOBERFEST

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THE BIG PARTY

Oktoberfest was a little different than I expected. I’ve never really researched into the event, and always figured I'd go at some point. For a long time, I always thought it sort of spread out a bit over the city, but I knew more recently that was not the case. But, I definitely didn't expect it to have such a county fair atmosphere with rides and carnival games. I knew about the brewery tents, the music, the liters of beer and pretzels.

I wasn't too surprised that the music wasn’t traditional polkas or German music, but each tent did vary and some were more varied than others.

Wow were the tents crazy in the evening. We arrived around 3:30 to Munich and had a place literally across the street from the tents. Since we were only staying one night and arriving mid day, it was worth paying for the close proximity. We even went quickly back after our first tent (Lowenbrau) to put on some warmer clothes before returning for a bratwurst and a visit to the HF tent. Lowenbrau in the late afternoon was festive but not yet out of control. We found a table and shared it with an older German couple, Americans from Colorado and a young New Zealand couple. I had to laugh, the Americans made a point early to say that they weren't from Lauren Boebart's district, yeah!

Try as we might, we couldn't communicate too well with the Germans, but lots of prosts were made! The New Zealanders were fun, and in the middle of a really long Europe and US trip. They had rented the whole traditional outfits and everything! Really fun. The band did a wide variety of music including one of our favorites: 500 Miles by the Proclaimers! Some standing on the benches by the younger drinkers (well, mostly by the younger ones ;)). They did a nice rendition of Ave Maria with trumpeters up on the balconies, Sweet Caroline to get the folks singing! And a lot of tunes that everyone seemed to know but me. The traditional 1/2 chicken served in the tent was actually really good.

After a couple liters in the Lowenbrau tent we decided to try another. So after going back for warmer clothes, we landed in HB (Hofbrau) tent for a little bit. By this time, the tents are packed, and people are pretty inebriated. Too crazy, so we ordered a liter, and walked around a bit and called it a night.

3 liters, one 1/2 chicken, a bratwurst, pretzel and strudel, some singing and prosting, and our 18 hours Oktoberfest flyby was complete. - That was enough without seriously overdoing it. Well, the hotel party went on until 2am but I didnt hear that part ;-). OMG the lobby floors at the hotel were so sticky from spilled beer.