We're Having a Party

Our first big mistake - we only booked one day in Rothenberg.   We boarded the train and headed to Augsburg.  Augsburg is about one half to three quarters of an hour from Munich.  It's Oktoberfest in Munich and whatever hotel rooms were available were horrendously expensive.  Dumping our stuff in our hotel in Augsburg, Argie came up with the brilliant idea to head to Oktoberfest today. Finding Oktoberfest was simple - all we had to do was follow the dirndls and lederhosen and if you weren't bright enough to figure that out they painted arrows on the sidewalk. 

I was lukewarm on attending Oktoberfest. You know I don't like crowds and fat drunks in short leather pants and oom pah pah music are not high on my like list.  Oktoberfest began early in the 19th century as a celebration for the wedding of Ludwig I.  It has flourished and grown ever since. Today it is the largest festival in the world attracting seven million visitors in its 16 day run.  These visitors consume over seven million litres of beer.  The site is huge.  There are 14 large tents, each representing a major brewery as well as twenty smaller tents.

 We opted for the most famous Hofbrauhaus tent, medium-sized for the larger tents. It holds 7,000 people and an additional 3,000 in its beer garden.

 Entering the tent you are immediately swept up in the party atmosphere. Everyone is in a joyous mood and very friendly. We immediately found seats at a long wooden table and joined the party.

Seventy-five percent of the people at Oktoberfest are appropriately dressed in either dirndls or lederhosen.  I actually enjoyed the oom pah pah band and I hadn't even had a beer yet.  Kelly and I ordered a maß of beer (1 litre), Judy and Argie ordered Radlers (Shandies).

 Everyone was super friendly.  Kelly hadn't even made it into the ten when a grey haired man in lederhosen wanted his picture taken with her.  Every five minutes someone at our table would yell, "prost" and everyone would join in.   Occasionally someone would climb up on a table and attempt to chug a maß of beer to the encouragement of 6,999 of their closest friends.

We met people from all over the world.

Time absolutely flew by.  Argie heard rumours of a dessert tent so off we went in search of the elusive dessert tent.  Finding said tent we settled in for strudel and cake and enjoyed the serenading by a pop rock band.

Before we realized it, it was getting late so we ambled back through the expanding crown and tight security to the train station and home.