All photos in this post are courtesy of my generous and talented friend, Georgy Alekseev.
A group of us from the German course took a weekend trip up to Munich for the first day of Oktoberfest on the 28th of September (I know Oktoberfest in September sounds a bit silly, perhaps the German’s just couldn’t wait). But from the moment I entered the sea of lederhosen and dirndls, I could see why they were so eager to get the 16 day festival going.
The 103 acres of showgrounds situated right in the center of Munich were packed with 14 huge tents from various breweries, each spilling out with people from noon til night. Outside the tents was like a carnival with roller-coasters, a Ferris wheel, haunted houses, bumper cars and stall after stall of traditional Austrian wursts (sausages), brezel (pretzel) and lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread hearts).
The token girl
I may have forced one of my friends to buy me a lebkuchenherzen…
…and another to ride the roller coasters with me
With so much going on it was hard to know where to start, but the general consensus amongst the group (and I would say the majority of everyone else in the showgrounds) was: BEER! There were ever present lines spilling from each of the tents: the gatekeepers of the liquid gold everyone was longing for. Unfortunately the tents had no signs to direct the public, so no one in the lines knew what they were lining up for or how long they would have to wait. We managed to get through one lot of barricades and SAW some beer but we could not for the life of us find where to buy some!! At a nearby tent, although packed to the brim, we were able to stroll into the open aired area and score a beer from a waiter carrying a crate full of pints. There was no hope in finding a table but we settled ourselves down on a staircase with a great view of the boozy tent below and the bustling festivities in the showgrounds outside.
I felt a bit under dressed without a dirndl so I invested in an Oktoberfest hat
Then I bought the birthday boys (Niko and Erwin) matching ones – which they were thrilled about!
You paid around €10 per 1L mug of beer (what the Germans call a ‘Muß’). A price the Europeans complained but having been to multiple Australian festivals where you pay similar prices just for a 375mL can, I was happy. The whole day I was calling the muß a stein and wondering why no one knew what I was talking about. ‘Stein’ sounds German and I was sure that was what they called them, but found out from an Austrian the weekend after that stein, although a German word, is only used by the British – a little too late I’d already embarrassed myself all weekend long.
The strangest thing was you could just walk through the park to a nearby supermarket and buy some beers at €1.50 each, with no gates or security to stop you from bringing whatever you like back into the showgrounds (bringing booze in and out of the tents was a different story). So this is exactly what we did when the ever increasing lines prevented us from getting into a tent. We sat with our beers on a popular hill that overlooked the showgrounds and people watched for hours, as the sun set and the beer tents and carnival rides lit up. We had plenty of heavily intoxicated strangers approaching us and rolling down the steep hill around us, to keep us entertained for hours.
The hill was a popular spot
With incredible views of the showgrounds from noon til night
Just having a nap…
Yes, that guy is putting his bare ass on a sleeping man’s face and yes, he did slip and roll down the hill with his pants still around his ankles – it was great
As at any festival, we made lots of heavily intoxicated friends
I was never convinced a lederhosen was the most attractive thing a guy could wear. I don’t know if it was the beer goggles or if the Germans are just good-looking enough to pull off anything, but they knew how to make the lederhosen work for them.
Some mighty fine specimens I found in lederhosen
The positive vibes flowed from day to night. As the sun set, parents carried home their tired young children, dressed in the smallest lederhosens and dirndls I’ve ever seen. Those young and old, still standing after the day’s multiple steins took to the tents – where the beer continued to flow, bands played and more people were dancing on tables than on the floor. We sat down next to a group of strangers at the iconic long benches in the ‘courtyard’ of one of the tents and lapped up muß after muß. The tents had a great atmosphere: complete strangers from all walks of life and all areas of the globe drinking and laughing and celebrating together. The magic social powers of beer making the most awkward of people feel at ease. However it was only midnight when the music stopped and the tent began to thin out – way too early for my liking! Perhaps they were pacing themselves, knowing they have another three weeks left of days and nights exactly like this one!
One of the Australian boys needed a bit of help getting home after the big day of beer
You would not believe the amount of Australians I met at Oktoberfest! I met a Melbourne man in the line for souvenirs; a complete space cadet from the Gold Coast wandering around the showgrounds with no shoes; a Perth girl in the line for the bathroom and a man in a dirndl from Currumbine (a suburb in Perth less than 20 minutes from my house) sitting next to us on a table in one of the beer tents. Even on the train back from Munich a guy sitting in front of me and a girl on the other side of the isle were both Australian students on exchange in Graz – I swear we are all subconsciously drawn to one another!
Berroca: the only thing that got us through the following day
Gorgeous countryside on the train home from Munich
Sea to Snow 