Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest is upon us.  Dun dun dunnnnnn.  Over the course of the two weeks of Oktoberfest, Munich's population swells by eight million.  And it's eight million drunk people.  Which is why we planned our huge France trip over most of Oktoberfest.

But today was the first day of Oktoberfest and we went.   At least 50% of of the people we saw on the U-bahn there and at Theresienwiese (where Oktoberfest is held) were wearing the tracht (traditional outfits) of lederhosen for men and dirdnls for women.   It's actually common to see these outfits everyday here.  They wear the traditional outfits in Bavaria for reasons like "it's Tuesday, so why not?"  There is not an ounce of irony when Bavarians wear their tracht.  Real life dirndls and lederhosen are very beautiful and classy looking and the images google pulls up of lederhosen and dirdnls look very cheap and Halloween-ish in comparison.  We really should have taken some photos of the people at Oktoberfest, but instead here are some photos OTHER people (thanks, Paige in Paris) took of people at Oktoberfest:

It's not just the older crowd that wears lederhosen and dirndls, either.  EVERYONE wears them:  parents, teens, little kids, grandparents.  There are some very trendy stores that sell very trendy lederhosen and dirndls.

Anyway, we got to Oktoberfest late in the morning and caught the tail end of the Oktoberfest opening parade.  The parade is pretty much bands and horses hauling beer kegs.  Here we are in front of one of the bigger beer tents.

They are called tents and they are temporary structures, but there is nothing tent-y about them.  They are multileveled and have balconies, windows, and architecture.  You can kind of see the parade in the background here.  We tried to get closer, but it was too crowded and we didn't want to crush baby.  Using the carrier instead of the stroller was a fantastic move on our part.  I really don't know how we would have maneuvered at all with a stroller.

It was bright out as evidence by the face baby is pulling.

Since we couldn't get close T had the idea to just move down a few "streets" and then we were fairly close.   The parade is blown out in the background, but baby and I look the best in this photo, so here you go.

The parade, another beer tent, and 10 points if you can spot the "Gandolf hat." (The Gandolf looking hats are actually "traditional" hats but I've only ever seen tourists wearing them).

This is what the horses are hauling.  Decorated kegs of beer.

A somewhat failed attempt at a family self portrait.

With a set of horses that hauls the kegs.  Well, actually it's like 6 or 8 horses that haul the ceremonial beer, but we couldn't fit all of them in the photo.

Getting into Oktoberfest is free so we moseyed around.  Even though Oktoberfest is 90% about the drinking, there are a ton of places to eat, things to buy, and carnival rides to go on.  That last one doesn't really make sense to me - why would you want to go on a crazy ride when you are drunk?  That's a recipe for disaster.

Walking through one of the biergartens we saw a woman (a waitress of beer, if you will) seriously carrying 10 steins of beer in her hands.  And just so you know a stein of beer holds about three bottles of beer.  (Again, photo from Paige of Paris)

She's putting the beer down here, but they walk across a whole beer tent like this without a tray or anything.  I actually couldn't figure out how they hold them all.  It's very impressive.

I'm glad that we went to Oktoberfest when we did because though there were a lot of people, the beer doesn't start flowing until the parade ends so very few people "pre-gamed" and were already drunk.  Quite a few families with little kids seemed to have the same idea.

I had to take the U-bahn again later today around 5:30 p.m.  Kind of funny to see the police standing in a line next to the tracks to make sure drunks don't fall on the tracks.  On the train some people had glazed alcohol eyes but there was only one loud obnoxious drunk and one falling over drunk.  But I imagine the real party crowd wouldn't be heading home at 5:30.

I'm glad we experienced a small bit of Oktoberfest and ever gladder that we will miss most of it.