Octoberfest – crazy

As already promised, I’ll update you with this year’s happening in Munich, Germany: The Octoberfest!

In case you wonder what Oktoberfest Octoberfest is:

Oktoberfest is a 16–18 day beer festival held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and is the world’s largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture, having been held since 1810. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations, modeled after the Munich event.The festival is held in an area named the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese), often called Wiesn for short, located near Munich’s center. Only beer which is brewed within the city limits of Munich is allowed to be served in this festival. Upon passing this criterion, a beer is designated Oktoberfest Beer. Oktoberfest Beer is a registered Trademark by the Club of Munich Brewers. Large quantities of German beer are consumed, with almost 7 million liters served during the 16 day festival in 2007. Visitors may also enjoy a wide variety of traditional food such as Hendl (chicken), Schweinebraten (roast pork), Schweinshaxe (grilled ham hock), Steckerlfisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstl (sausages) along with Brezn (Pretzel), Knödel (potato or bread dumplings), Kasspatzn (cheese noodles), Reiberdatschi (potato pancakes), Sauerkraut or Rotekraut (red cabbage) along with such Bavarian delicacies as Obatzda (a spiced cheese-butter spread) and Weisswurst (a white sausage) with sweet mustard.

Text source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest

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It is a bit funny that I ended up in Munich again, since last year I promised to myself that I never-ever go there again. Pretty confusing, huh?

Well, the thing is that last year (my very first time there) we ended up going to the festival on it’s very last day and it was truly the busiest day there. I was thrilled by the crowd and the festival’s size. It was like nothing I experienced before, I was drawn with the crowd, almost unable to go my direction. The worst thing was that the guards did not let us in any of those giant beer-tents because they were already overloaded. They did not even let us go inside the beer-gardens they had just outside of those tents. We were desperate since they were not selling beer anywhere else but within the tent areas. The guards were pretty rude, but I could understand them, being pushed and yelled at by thousands of people would upset me too. The thing is that we were not going to go home without tasting that beer at least, so my boyfriend and I decided to trick the guards and run for it, hoping that they would not come after us since they had a large crowd to deal with at the entrance. And damn, we were right… :).

So we did something that gave us extra kick, we ran inside and finally we got our well-deserved beer (I was still a bit afraid of getting beaten up, I have never done anything like this). It tasted really good I must say after standing and waiting for a couple of hours hoping that they might let us in. Well, at that point I said NO WAY I AM RETURNING here ever again! But I was so wrong.

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This year my sister and her husband asked us if we wanted to join them for a 5 days long trip to Germany and Austria. Without the kids. Yeah, 5 days without the kids. We haven’t been anywhere without the kids for 2 years now.

We said yes, and we had the greatest time ever, involving doing tourist things, sleeping a lot, relaxing, visiting to Octoberfest, drinking a lot of beer, eating delicious food. This year -based on last year’s experience- we made sure to go there on a weekday at the middle of the day, thinking that it might be a little calmer, but when we arrived at lunchtime we hardly got inside the tents, we had to fight for the table. But once we were seated, we experienced such a nice atmosphere there. It was the busiest festival that I have been on ever!

CHEEEEEERS! 😀 😀 😀

Tags: beer drinking, beerfest, feast, Germany, Octoberfest, Octoberfest pictures

• October 7, 2011
• family, Photography, Things that make me feel good, Travel
• 9 Comments