Oktoberfest

Every year around September/October, beer festivals start appearing in a lot of cities.  They usually call themselves Oktoberfest.  However, there is only one original Oktoberfest; and that is in Munich. Locals called it Wiesn, the fairground where it's being held.  You can learn more about the history and other factual information by clicking on the Oktoberfest link above.

Entrance to the Oktoberfest fairground

Coming to Oktoberfest has been on my bucket list for a number of years.  But, I heard that it's very difficult to find a hotel room in the city during that period or you have to pay a very high room rate.  In 2014, while traveling in South Africa, I met a friend Paul and he invited me to stay with him at his student apartment.  I missed 2014 because I was running in the NYC Marathon and in 2015, I had to go to Singapore for some family matters.  However, while at a food court in Singapore, I struck up a conversation and became friends with a German expatriate.  By coincidence, he is from Munich and I told him that my goal is to one day attend Oktoberfest.  He graciously invited me to stay with him and his family, and so here I am in 2016, visiting and staying with my friend, Tobias Fausch, and his family.

Getting dressed up in traditional German attire

I am missing my lederhosen

Standing in front of the Paulaner tent where we celebrated

Waitress carrying many mugs of beer

Extra large pretzels, just for Oktoberfest

Six million people visited Oktoberfest last year.  Getting a table reservation is a big, big challenge, unless you have some connections.  Tobias was able to get a table reserved at 5 pm on October 1st.  What if you don't have a reservation?  For most people, it means getting there early and get into one of the tents and secure a seat at a table.  You will not be served beer if you do not have a seat at a table.  This means that you will likely be seating with strangers or in an open public area.

Open seating area with bandstand in the background

Having fun drinking with friends

Before I came to Oktoberfest, I had the impression that you pay an entrance fee to get into a big tent, find a seat, and you will be served beer.  That's not how it works.  It's actually a big carnival, with rides, games, toys, souvenirs, etc, like you would see in any carnival.  Entrance to this area is free.
Within this Wiesn area are 14 tents belonging to the biggest breweries in Bavaria.  You pick which tent you want to go to or you may have reservation at a specific tent.  Entry to the tent is also free but admission gets harder as it gets later in the day.  Advice: start in the early afternoon or even earlier.  When we arrived, most of the tents have long lines.  With our wrist bands, we got into the Paulaner tent without any problem, and was shown to our table.
There were 10 of us at our table, all friends of Tobias, who worked and met in Singapore.  So, all of us have a Singapore connection.

Tobias and I

The waitress came and took our orders for the beer and food.  It's amazing how many 1-liter mugs of beer each waitress can carry.  There is a band playing in the tent, playing a mix of German music and English pop music, including Abba's Dancing Queen and Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline.  It's a very noisy place but not at all rowdy.  Some people are dancing on their tables.  Security is very tight.  Any hint of anyone getting rowdy or violent, gets immediately thrown out of the tent.  Everyone is in a very happy mood.  Strangers greet one another and start conversations.  I walked around the tent and probably talked to at least 20 strangers.  The tent is an amazing operation.  They have a big kitchen preparing food and 4 beer stations.  They have booths that sell souvenirs, pretzels, and vendors walking around selling flowers, hats, etc.   Security folks are constantly getting people moving in the corridors to allow the waiters and waitresses easy access to the attendees.

1-liter beer mugs getting ready to be filled

A very well-equipped kitchen to serve food

It's a night of fun, conversation with friends and strangers, dancing on the benches, singing with the band, eating German food, and of course, drinking lots of beer.  The beer brewed for Oktoberfest has a higher alcohol content - about 5.5%.   I drank 3 liters of beer!  You control your own drunkenness.  When we left, there were many who drank too much and laid down on "puke hill."

One of the amazing things I learned when coming to Munich is that the locals really enjoy coming to Oktoberfest as well.  Many of them don't come for just 1 evening.  They come multiple times during the 2-week festival.  I heard some even come every night!  This is their event and part of their pride of being a citizen of Munich and Germany.   Tourists come from all over the world.  The second weekend is heavily patronized by Italians.  So much so that the Italian Police come and help control the Italian crowd.

The place shuts down at 11 pm and the mass of people start heading towards the trains to go back to wherever they are staying.  Crowd control and security was superb.  I was told that this year the crowd is smaller but nevertheless, there were a lot of people there.  And they run this for 17 days!

Drank too much.  Sitting next to "puke hill"

This two won't be going home tonight