Balkan Trip Part 4 —Oktoberfest with Joe
Mostly tips for Oktoberfest
I got to Munich at 4pm on Friday. As everything in Munich is expensive(x10) during Oktoberfest, Joe and I planned to camp for the weekend (thanks again Fabien). In the few hours I had before Joe arrived I set up the tent and went on a vain search for food, which yielded one meagre Mars bar.
Joe arrived and we arranged our stuff in the tent. The tent was the perfect size for Rachel and I when our luggage was in the car. But replace Rachel with Joe, and add in all of our backpacks, and you can imagine it was a cozy fit. However, it was fine. After a beer and some catching up, we retired for the night before the big day ahead.
Before my journey started I knew nothing about Oktoberfest. All I thought was that it involved beer, it was during October, I thought is was everywhere in Germany, and I knew I should attend it if I had the chance.
What Oktoberfest is, is a festival/carnival (fest should have given that away). It is only in one location: Theresienwiese, the fairgrounds of Munich. Other cities have Oktoberfest festivals, but the real Oktoberfest is in Munich at Theresienwiese. The main draw is the beer drinking tents. There are 14 giant tents set up with different beers. The biggest tent has a capacity of 10,000. It’s huge. The tents are full of long tables, benches, Bavarian music, and beer.
Our only goal for the weekend was to get a seat at a table in a tent. However, the Saturday we were there — the Saturday in the middle of the festival — is the busiest day of them all. We were warned that our chances were slim of getting in to a tent. And if we did get in we would need to be very lucky to find a place to sit. We knew if we didn’t make it there was still the rest of the festival to go to — carnival rides and food stands, but we cautiously hoped we would get in.
That morning we woke up at 7am to improve our odds. As we went to brush our teeth at 7:10, half the campsite was already wearing lederhosen and leaving for Theresienwiese. We were waking up to go drinking at 7am and we were cutting it close. I hadn’t been in that position before.
We tram-ed downtown, grabbed some food, and entered the grounds at 9:15am. The carnival rides and stalls were not busy, but still there were plenty of people about. After passing a couple tents we picked one, crossed our fingers, and walked through the doors into the murmur of the crowd.
To our delighted surprise, the tent was not full. Seeing some empty seats, we began speculating about where we were allowed/should sit. We walked to the very middle, picked a table, and sat down. We had done it. We got a seat in a tent on the busiest day of Oktoberfest. Prost!
The beer is served in liter-steins and cost a fair 11 euros. We ordered one each, took a sip, and started our day Oktoberfest-ing. Soon enough a group of French guys sat down beside us, and then a group of Americans sat down beside them. By 10:30am there wasn’t much space left and you would be lucky to find a seat. By 11:30 it was packed and you would have to be patient and get lucky to find a seat. By 12:30 it was so full you weren’t getting in no matter how much luck you brought.
So, there we stayed, from 9:30am to 4pm. Playing drinking games with the French guys, singing the ‘Prost’ song with the crowd, and ordering expensive wonderful beer. As you’d expect, with the beer and the people and the lederhosen and the music, Oktoberfest is a wonderfully jovial environment. It’s thousands of people singing and drinking and being merry.
At 4 in the afternoon Joe and I were getting very… tried. And the tent was very, very hot. So we said “salut” to the French guys and went in search for food and non-alcoholic drink. We got back to the campsite at 6pm, and exhausted from the day I decided to take a nap. I woke up nicely refreshed at 8am the next morning.
Oktoberfest is a great experience. A lot of fun. But be prepared to pay for it. Budget at least 50 euros a day. If you’re going multiple days you can afford to be frugal, but if you’re only there for 1 or 2 days indulge yourself.
The whole festival makes Munich one billion euros each year. That’s a lot of money for a 17 day cultural event. With 6.5 million visitors total you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people entering Theresienwiese every day. It’s big.
The next day, walking up at 8am, we didn’t feel like doing it all over again. We decided to explore the centre of Munich, then in the afternoon went to a football game at the Allianz Aren: Munich 1860 vs Hanover 96. Hanover won.
The game ended at 4pm and Joe’s train was at 9. What to do for five hours in Munich? We went back to Oktobefest for a few more. My German friend, Nico, who I started the trip with in Pristina was back home in Munich and had a table reserved. We joined him for an hour, had one last beer, and then Joe took off. After seeing Joe off at the train station I went back for a couple more. Went I got back to the campsite again I was very… tired.
For the last day of my trip I was exhausted from the two previous weeks, so I enjoyed a slow day in the city. I went to the 72 Olympic park and a museum downtown. Then I went to the airport and departed back to Pristina. The flight back was 400x faster then the route I took getting there.