Oktoberfest
Two weeks ago, I jumped on an over-crowded Ryanair flight from Manchester to Stuttgart. It was my first flight ever into Germany, my first time away with some friends from work and also ended up featuring my first day drinking beer from giant glass steins, singing American songs in a German accent with beautiful strangers. The whole experience was both ridiculous and excellent in equal measure. I’ll start from the very beginning of the day.
The day actually began at 6.30am. We’d arrived in Munich the day before (we’d been in Stuttgart beforehand) and seen some of the sights; a beautiful rooftop bar, the two universities, Munich’s Apple Store (of course) and a beautiful part of town called Marienplatz. We got a relatively early night, and woke up to the sound of my alarm.
I’d promised my friend Dom we’d get up early and run. After failing to do this for two days previous, we finally managed to get ourselves up and out. We set the pace and headed for the Olympic Park.
Olympiapark is a stunning monument to the Olympics. The park’s in a near-perfect condition; it’s immaculately kept and still in active use. It may have been because it was extremely early in the morning, but there was a quiet eeiriness to the area. It felt as if the stadia were proud to be stood on this parkland forty-four years since Olympians set alight the hearts of their countrymen and women in their stands.
There is, of course, a beautifully understated memorial to those who were killed in the Munich Massacre on the approach to the main group of buildings. We stopped our run here for a moment of quiet reflection.
Run completed, we headed back to wake up our fellow beer drinkers, don our lederhosen, and head into the centre of Munich where we were meeting others. The MVV, Munich’s tramway, took us through to the centre, where we grabbed a traditional breakfast — it included sausage — and then made our way across the city to Theresienwiese, where we discovered the biggest carnival I’ve ever seen.
The scale of this festival is absolutely ridiculous. You enter the park through newly-installed-this-year security fences. As you walk through, you’re met by a human wall of security guards — they’re perfectly spaced apart; they’re not so close together that you feel intimidated but equally, there’s enough room for you and a friend to walk through a gap together. This feels like they’ve got it under control — you’re safe.
Our first task — find a tent with space for us. We were so lucky to have been visiting with natives, natives who visit Oktoberfest every year.
“Do you want to see a classic German tent in amongst all the locals, or go to a more tourist-y tent?”
We chose the German tent.
This required making our way through the festival, right to the back. Our German hosts remarked that it seemed noticeably quieter than usual for the time of the day we were there. Considering it was just after midday, it felt stupidly busy. Apparently, even in the areas outside of the tent, it’s usually impossible to move. You’re packed in.
It definitely became that busy later.
We found our tent. It had decking outside, and on the decking, carefully arranged long tables and benches. Not one bench was vacant. As we entered, a server grabbed the attention of one of our German hosts. “sechs?” our server enquired, and then proceeded to approach a group of people who hadn’t ordered fresh steins for a while, asking them to leave so we could sit down.
A slight altercation, nothing major, meant that we didn’t end up replacing the group. Instead, the server searched the area, found two friends sat on a table that could easily accommodate six more, and let us know another server would be with us shortly.
This is where the magic of Oktoberfest began to set in. We sat down, and immediately a gentleman dressed in an uniform provided by Lowenbrau (a popular German beer which we proceeded to order) appeared. He went by the extremely German name — Pedro.
Pedro took our orders, and in a flash returned to the table carry six steins as if he was carrying only a few, much smaller glasses. The servers really are talented — I saw one carrying ten steins.
We tipped Pedro for his kind service, and the beer-drinking commenced.
After two steins (the equivalent of just over four English pints), our German hosts advised that we should take a walk. Excited by the prospect of roller coasters and dodgems, we took their advice, proceeding to leave our coveted bench to enjoy some thrillseeking. As we left the tent, it became clear that the busyness expected by our German friends was slowly becoming a reality. The areas around the tents were crowded, and our path to the amusements involved navigating around fellow tipsy beer-drinkers.
We enjoyed dodgems and the Olympia rollercoaster (presumably a homage to the Olympics of ’72), and then went in search of food. I had a bratwurst (again) — only this time, there were cheesy chunks within the sausage. My grumbling stomach and tipsy head loved it.
By the time we’d decided we missed drinking beer, the entire park felt absolutely packed. To move around, you’d need to push through the growing-drunker crowd. We needed to do this to head back to our locals’ tent.
When we got there, we waited an hour and fifteen minutes to get into the tent. It was too full to let anyone else in. By this time, our German hosts had consulted their network of fellow locals and we got a tip off about another tent that had just opened its doors to more people. We hastily left our original tent, walking alongside “the hill” (we were warned to avoid this area at all costs — it was where those who’d had too much went to vomit, pass out or perform sexual acts), around the back of another tent and straight through some open doors. As we passed through these doors, they closed behind us, and we were swallowed up into a tent holding 11,000 people at it’s capacity and in desperate search of more beer.
Honestly, from this point I don’t recall too much else. We found a place to stand, aside from an occupied long bench, and ordered stein after stein after stein. From the bandstand dropped in the middle of the tent, a first-class band played covers all night long, interspersing their English, American & German pop classics with renditions of Ein Prosit — a tranditional German drinking song where you toast your companions in the tent. Once you’ve sung, you must shout Prost! (Cheers!) and drink.
I can honestly say it was one of the most bizarre, interesting, amazing full days out I’ve ever had whilst visiting another country.
I’ve already bought next year’s ticket.