Oktoberfest. Daycare center for adults.

Where do I start. Wednesday, September 25th. Do I tell you about the train ride there full of men in Liederhosen and women in Bavarian dresses?….walking to Oktoberfest and seeing people getting carried out like fallen soldiers?…police around every corner? Or do I just get into what I saw when I walked in the gate. Here.
I could actually sum up the experience with probably one picture, just one, which I will of course reveal to you later in this posting. As far as you could see, just one huge road leading down to a carnival of rides at least a half mile away. Each tent had it’s own theme, and when the rain began we knew we had to find one. I think we went in one or two tents before finally settling in the Spaten tent. Mainly because we found 3 other colleages from work already in there drinking. We walk up, everyone’s arms go flying in the air with a “HEY!!!!” as they hand us all beers with maybe a 1/3rd of alcohol left in them. We cheers everyone, something we will end up doing about 400 times that night, maybe every 30 seconds or so it felt like.

The beer mugs were big. They hold a liter of beer, and probably weigh about 4 pounds empty. We find out from the servers the only way to get beer is to stand on the bench at a table. But they agreed to serve us if we didn’t have a bench they they would put the beer down on the table, we pay, they walk away, then we can grab our beer. Rules, phhhh.

I got into a contest with one of the girls to see who could hold their arm out straight with their beer mug in their hand the longest. She must have had some German upper hand or training, because I lost the first round. My hands were sore in between my thumb and forefinger for about 3 days afterwards just from holding my beer all night. But the whole time we sang songs…well, I didn’t know half the words, but shouted out a word or two when I knew it.

We finished the night getting forced out at 11, as everyone has to leave then, and went over to the carnival section of the festival. The 6 or 8 of us remaining then boarded the roller coaster, getting smashed into the seats by the carni staff since I heard there was a major accident a few years back and some people died. Ahh the things you find out after you go to Oktoberfest. But they subway was horrifically packed with people all drunk, cramming into the doors when they opened. Thank God nobody drives to this thing…I hope.


yeah this is madness...just a few thousand drunk people trying to cram into one subway car.this is curry wurst und pommes frites...a german substitute for late night burritos. it's sausage...french fries, with a healthy spoon serving of mayo and ketchup.parker