Germany

Lots of people said don't go to Oktoberfest, it would be full of ugly Australians. Well, we aren't that pretty, and we did come across a few Australians, but what we didn't add with our natural beauty we made up for with our enthusiasm, persistence and silly hats. We were not so well prepared on the first day which was the opening day so you can imagine how many people were there. The stats are 6 million people over the three week period that the beerfest is on for, and let me say that lots ofnthem went on day one. The festival starts at 12pm after 12 rounds of pretend canon fire and the first drink has been downed by the burgermeister (mayor). And then its on for one and all. With a couple of rules. One rule is that in order to have a beer you need a seat. The other rule is that a beer only comes in a one litre glass - eine mass. So, we naiive Australians, accompanied by John and Janine who have had a well-earned break from the fabulous Tuross Boatshed, and our German rellies, turned up at around midday. Well guess what - couldn't find a seat. Despite the beer tents taking between 2 and 8 000 people, we couldn't sit anywhere and hence we couldn't get a beer. Think about that - Australians at the biggest beerfest in the world and they didn't drink a beer. Seriously, the team was horrified at the prospect of having to admit that but things were seemingly hopeless, bodies herded shoulder to shoulder, beer belly to beer belly, along narrow thoroughfares unable to turn around, and thousands of lucky ones on seats, squashed hip to hip along hard wooden benches and being delivered masses of beer by wait staff you wouldn't mess with. Yet the goodwill of the crowd as their singing and banter and clinking of glasses was hypnotic and we knew we had to work something out. But maybe later. It was a beautiful day so once we made it ouside, we decided to go to the Englische Garten, a huge park up near the university with its own beer garten set among the beautiful grounds, and its own rather bad band playing the traditional swaying ype drinking songs. We enjoyed a drink in the sun and a bit of a wander and said goodbye to aunt and uncle who had come up for the day from Krumbach (more next post) and back to Oktoberfest we went. Well, if we thought the morning had been crowded, it was nothing on the late afternoon. People were queued up outside beer tents. Some tents were closed they were so full. The ground was littered with rubbish and the queues for the toilets were as long as a runway. People were beginning to lurch and stagger about as they lost consciousness of their limbs in time and space, and the gloss of goodwill was quickly fading, though terribly well supervised by the grim and scary security staff. With the wisdom that comes from being of the age we are, we decided to retreat to our hotel, grabbing some festival fare of bratwurst and semmel, followed by shockolade erdbeeren (a stick of heavenly chocolate strawberries), and were chased home by the threat of a thunderstorm. But fear not loyal followers, we had a plan to get that oktoberfest seat and did not let Australia down. We thought we'd strike esrly Sunday morning when people were either in church, or sleeping off Saturday night. Unfortunately the weather conditions had deteriorated significantly. Driving wind and rain, puddles, mud and cold - a real autmn day. It was grey, wet and cold outside so the inside of a beer tent was a stark contrast with its warmth and brightness. Early as we though we were, most of the seats were already taken in one of the biggest tents, but we managed to score a seat until 11.30, plenty of time to achieve our objectives - dry out, get warm and spend 9 euros on a beer. These beer tens run like factories. One secrion cooks hundreds of bbq chickens. One section pours the beer. One section washes the glasses. One wait person serves their allocated tables carrying up to 10 glasses at a time and these are heavy glasses plus the litre of contents. Others wander the aisles selling pretzel bread, sweet buns - and silly hats! See facebook for how I was able to finally become blonde. We got asked to move on just after midday, after hree rounds and a fair bit of singing, jubilant with our success. So back out into the gloomy, cold day, but with a very warm glow of satisfaction and just plain old happiness of having had a great time with friends and a few thousand other people. Prost!