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Post date: 25-Sep-2009 18:49:09
On Sunday, Sept 20, 2009, Colin and I subjected ourselves to 9 hours at Oktoberfest. We thought we'd have more fun and a better chance of getting a table in a tent if we attended with a group of people. Therefore, Colin sent an email and reserved us a spot hanging out with fellow couchsurfers for the day. We met 13 other couchsurfers in front of the Bavarian statue at noon. At Oktoberfest, Colin and I also designated the left side of the large statue as our meeting spot in case we got separated.
As an Edmontonian, Oktoberfest is a bit like Klondike Days. There are many rides and many places to buy food; however, the main focus is on drinking beer. It costs about $30.00 euros per person to reserve a spot at a table. However, the couchsurfing organizer Michael reserved us table 75 in a beer tent and we kept that table from noon until 4:00 PM. We managed to get lucky after that and found a table in another tent that was free for about an hour and then in yet another tent a few people let us share their table and drink with them.
We felt a little inapporpriately dressed for the festival in our jeans and T-shirts. I mean I do
have the breasts to wear the traditional Bavarian dress with the corset. However, I didn't have the 100 euros to purchase a traditional Bavarian costume. I saw two styles of the Bavarian dresses-ankle length or knee length. It seems the traditional dress for a female is closed toed heeled shoes (some ladies had pointy toes others rounded) and a white blouse that is off the shoulder or has elasticized sleeves. These blouse are short or long sleeved and are worn under the corset or vest and then a matching skirt is also worn with an apron tied over the top. These dresses come in all different colours too. The girls often wear their hair in braids, or a fish tail ponytail.
Males wear lederhosen-beige suede capris or short shorts with suspenders accompanied by a white dress shirt or a checkered dress shirt. Often black dress shoes or runners are worn and long socks. At least three quarters of the people attending the festival are dressed up. During Oktoberfest, you can also wear the costumes to work too.
Tent Etiquette
No bottled beverages of any kind are allowed in the tent. I guess you are not allowed to consume water. If you are caught with a bottle of another beverage you will be kicked out of the tent. However, our new friend Caroline from Montreal snuck in my tiny 3 euro bottle of water into our tent for me. Colin and I both drank 4 litres of beer so we wouldn't have made it without the water.
Most of the couchsurfers were from somewhere in Germany, America, and Canada. We learned about the traditional food that is eaten during Oktoberfest. A quarter chicken costs 9 euro, 4 bratwurst (gray coloured sausage) browned sausages $7.85 and white veal sausage for $8.00. The white veal sausage is not crisply cooked and you're supposed to eat it by sucking out the sausage from the skin. We had 4 bratwurst sausages with saukerat and mustard. They were delicious.
I could have lived on the Bretzels (pretzels) alone. They are huge and probably contain as much starch as eating a loaf of bread. Although, you can also buy smaller pretzels too but when you're drinking an entire litre of beer you need the extra large bretzel to help absorb some of the alcohol. Colin and I shared a large pretzel and then I also had a small pretzel to myself after I had my 4th beer.
Colin and I both throught that schnitzel was a type of pink sausage that is placed in a hot dog bun. When he ordered a shnitzel he received a chicken burger on a round bun. A schnitzel is just a cutlet of a type of meat and is usually taken from a pig's back. He got one of our German friends to order him a super long skinny pink sausage that was served in a tiny round bun with mustard.
Other than the above the only other thing we ate all day was pomme fritos (fries), nuts, and a small cookie. As soon as we walked through the gates into Oktoberfest our nostrils were
overwhelmed with the smell of sweet roasting sugar. For 4 euros, I bought a small cone of sugar coated cashews. They were heavenly. Since the first Oktoberfest was instituted by a Bavarian king in 1810 to celebrate the marriage between Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hidburghausen and Prince Ludwig, a heart shape cookie is the symbol of Oktoberfest. You can buy them customized or you can buy them with ready made sayings. The small cookies are 3 euro. They have a nice icing on them that isn't too sweet and they taste like a very mild gingerbread cookie. They are fresh and soft but didn't contain enough spices for my liking. I couldn't even taste the cloves.
We began drinking at noon and by 9:00 PM we had consumed 4 litres of beer each and had a nice buzz going. It was entertaining to watch all the drunk people take public transportation home, lay on the sidewalk or sleep off their beer in the cool grass. However, it's even more enteraining to see this at 9:00 AM or early afternoon. As we witnessed from our almost a week in Germany, public drinking is okay. We saw people drinking on the sidewalk, in the parks, on the underground, on the S-Bahn, while biking. The biker's beer is half a litre of lemonade and half a litre of beer, so that you can still bike home.
You know that Colin and I enjoyed our time at Oktoberfest because of the picture below.
I don't know who this guy is or how or when he got into this picture with us. Another good question is who took this picture?
You can view our 488 pictures of Oktoberfest and Munich here.
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