Oktoberfest 2013

And now, for Oktoberfest itself.  Somehow, it never occured to me that it would be a lot like an American state fair on the outside, but so it was.

The rides were impressive, but I didn't go on any.  Notice the man in the grey pointy hat in this picture. Some people had similar hats with an motorized mechanism in them that moved the hat back and forth. (I swear I'm not kidding, this is a real thing you can buy at Oktoberfest.)  They reminded me of the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter.

I wanted to get a picture of both the Ferris wheel and of this man's amazing hat.  There were a lot of great clothes at Oktoberfest, and one of my favorite things was that almost everyone was wearing Tracht.

That thing next to the man?  That is a motorized beckoning finger.  Someone thought that was a good idea.

I thought these were so clever! These gingerbread hearts are a major Oktoberfest tradition, and normally they say things like "My treasure, I love you" (the big one on the top) or "do you know just how much I love you?" (second from the left on the bottom).  The ones with black on the edges, however, are anti-love hearts.  From left to right, they say "you've lied to me a thousand times", "with you I can only...get desperate", "you used to be my dream", "you've hurt me a thousand times", and "without you, everything is...wonderful!"  A little black humor to balance a lot of sweetness.

This is the tent that we went into on the first night.  It was unbelievably busy.  If we hadn't had an in, I don't think we would have ever gotten inside.

And this is what it looked like once we were inside: wall to wall people, with a roar of people talking that sounded like the ocean.

It was both amazing and overwhelming.  There was definitely no doubt that we were at Oktoberfest.

Here I am on the balcony, the most exclusive place of all! It was a lot of fun, and we even got to dance on the tables (relatively speaking-no one dances on the actual tables, you dance on the benches next to the tables.  No one is going to risk spilling Oktoberfest beer, which costs almost 10 Euros a Mass!)

In the end, maybe my favorite part of that night was the pretzel we split, which was, and I am in no way exaggerating, the best pretzel I have ever had in my life.  Guys, I lived in Austria for a year.  I have had some good pretzels.  But nothing like that.

On Saturday, we went back to Oktoberfest during the day, for a much calmer adventure.  We went in the Traditions Zelt, which was crowded, but much less so.

We saw a traditional dance (which, honestly, was more like a traditional walk.  After the knee-slapping, musical whip using, schnapps-drinking dances I saw in Austria, I was kind of disappointed.)

The Steins in the Traditons Zelt were gorgeous.  Here is mine.  It has Apfelschörle (apple juice and sparkling water) in it, because I was really done with alcohol from the night before.

I thought this sign really summed up the spirit of Oktoberfest: "These places are not reserved.  And when necessary, just squeeze together!"

It was a great experience.