A little bit more Oktoberfest!

Well, we truly had so much fun at Oktoberfest during the day, 2 days ago, that we felt we needed to go back at night to check it out.  We prepared ourself for this, by spending the day riding the Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus through town!  After all, we have been walking and walking and walking.  Gary looked at the pedometer on his phone and we have walked at least 6.5 miles (13,000 steps each day we have been in Europe, so we felt we deserved a "lazy", bus-riding kind of day!)  Even the day we took the all day guided bus way out of town to visit several Bavarian castles, we still walked 13,000 steps (mostly up and down spiral stone staircases)!

The big beer tents at Oktoberfest do not serve wine...your choices are beer, water and lemonade (?!).  There is one tent that serves wine, so we headed out to see if we could get a spot at a table for dinner. Smart, well prepared Oktoberfest goers, know that you need to make a reservation in the beer (or wine) hall of your choice...this guarantees you at seat at a table...but we were not those smart, well prepared Oktoberfest goers - we are novices!  But we were optimistic and headed out for the wine tent!  We were lucky to get a spot at a table upstairs in Kuffler's Weinzelt (Kuffler's Wine Tent).  This tent, while not one of the largest, is considered to be one of the most beautiful inside...it is very Bavarian looking with lots of wood embellishments.

We were thrilled to get 2 seats at a table upstairs.  We were briefly seated with an Indian family, but they left shortly after we sat down.  We slid down closer to the railing so we could have a better view of the activities downstairs and we were soon joined by 2 new groups of seat mates...3 guys from Serbia and 2 young gals from Albania (although it turns out that these high school friends both married men from Munich and had been living in Munich for 17 years)!  One of our new Serbian friends, in very broken English, managed to get the message across that he loves the USA.  He has never been to the states but hopes someday to go to New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco!  It turns out that he has a YouTube channel and makes all his money from the US...with out the US, he would have no money he kept telling us.  What made these 3 guys notable, was that 2 of them left in the middle of their meal for a long period of time.  At first I thought hey had just gone outside for a smoke, but they were gone so long, I began to think they had ditched their buddy, who was left at the table  with us, eating his dinner and drinking his beer.  However, I was wrong...the 2 Serbs returned and showed us photos on their phone...they had left in the middle of dinner to go out and ride one of the amusement park rides!!!  I was baffled that they could drink a beer, eat half a dinner, go have a smoke and take a ride on the German version of The Zipper ride, come back and finish dinner and another beer.  It gave me new respect for the Serbs...they clearly are a strong and hardy people!!

I noticed that both the Serbs and the Albanians were drinking beer in the wine tent and asked why they weren't in one of the beer tents.  They explained that this is the only tent that you could get a seat in, and the girls especially wanted to be able to talk and as we later found out, there was absolutely NO way you could chat and catch up in one of the beer tents!  We were a little bit disappointed because the band wasn't playing German drinking songs like the other day.  It was all American. music, sung with a German accent...but everyone was clapping and singing along, and we joined in!  " Sweet Caroline"  (bum,bum,bum...!) was a crowd favorite.  The only way to dance was to stand on the benches or tables, and that is what everyone does!  Definitely lively and fun...and we were in the "calm" tent!  At 8pm, they make everyone clear out for the 8pm reservations so it was time for us to move on and check out the beer tents!

Our Sebian friends, before their amusement park ride!

and no...I am not three sheets to the wind!

We ordered the most common food served...I got half a roast chicken and Gary got the pair of sausages with mashed potatoes and onion gravy.  Both were very good!  After dinner we wandered around...the crowd was a bit different than during the day...lots of young couples (high school and up)...not quite the family scene the it was during the day.  We tried to get into some of the beer tents, but is was so crazy crowded you could get in the door, but you couldn't get a seat at all...and everybody was standing on their tables/benches singing and hoisting their beer steins and singing along...Sweet Caroline was being played in each tent we checked out!!   Who knew the Germans loved Neil Diamond so much?!?   I'll never hear Sweet Caroline without thinking of Oktoberfest! 

standing on the benches, toasting and dancing!

Now that's what I call a pretzel...all 14 inches of it! (and they were selling like crazy by the vendors wandering through the tents!)

The following day we asked a few questions of our concierge, who was a rather severe Fraü, at our hotel.  She explained that there is always a parade on the first Saturday of Oktoberfest, for the people working at Oktoberfest, but the following day (Sunday) is the big parade, and all the tents are filled with the German bands playing....the parades are only on the first weekend.  So my advice to anyone coming to Oktoberfest, is to plan your arrival so you are here on that first Sunday (which I believe is always the 3rd Sunday in September), because it is a scene you will not want to miss!  

I feel so fortunate that although we only accidentally ended up in Munich on Oktoberfest, we arrived at the best possible day - and even though our hotel was not the greatest, the location provided us a great spot from which to watch the parade (and was within easy walking distance to the fairgrounds!). The serendipity of it all made for a pretty amazing experience, one that I know we will remember forever!