Oktoberfest

At the end of September my good friend, Kristen, and her friend, Caylin, came to visit us in Geneva. They were going on a trip around Europe and Switzerland was the first stop on the list. We had a great time showing them around all our favorite places in and around Geneva.

Caylin and Kristen getting ready to depart Geneva via the train.

After a week of the two girls seeing the sights across Europe, they met Jeff and I in Munich, Germany for the original authentic Oktoberfest celebration. Jeff has a good friend, Michael, (who's from Switzerland) that goes to Oktoberfest every year. Jeff has been to Oktoberfest twice before with him, but this would be the first time for my friends and I. Before I explain how it all works and tell you all about it, let me just begin by saying that we had a fantastic time!!

Welcome to the party!!

Every year on these huge fair grounds they build all these "tents", but really they are big buildings that in some cases hold up to 7,000 people! You would think they would just leave these buildings up year round, but I've been told they use these grounds for lots of other events....even though with set-up and tear-down, Oktoberfest occupies these grounds for about six months of the year! It takes about 4-5 months to build everything. Then Oktoberfest is three weeks and it takes about another month to tear it all down. It's crazy to me to think they do all that for just three weeks, but it is a major tourism draw for the city and country. They also construct tons of carnival rides!! I have never seen so many and such large temporary rides before. There were multiple roller coasters and a four story haunted house. They even have all those carnival game booths you see at fairs in the US. So you have people there to enjoy the beer and tent scene, but loads of other people there just to enjoy the numerous carnival rides.

On the Oktoberfest grounds you can only drink in the tents and most of the tents you need tickets to enter. They break the day into time slots and you purchase your tickets for a specific tent/time slot. We had tickets for Friday for a four hour session. Then Saturday we had a six hour session at a different tent. We had tickets for two of the smaller tents: one holding 3200 people and the other 1300. Your ticket includes a reserved place to sit and a credit to spend on beer or food in the tent during your session. Each tent is also usually sponsored by one brand of beer (makes ordering easier!) and has been from the start. Each tent has it's own traditions that have been around for ages. It really make the experience in each tent unique!!

Here are some fun statistics I found after the party was over! =)

• This year 6.4 million people attended Oktoberfest.
• There were almost 7 million liters of beer consumed!
• 130,000 letters and postcards were mailed from the Oktoberfest post office.
• 950 passports, 570 wallets, 480 mobile phones, 80 cameras, and an array of other random items were all turned into the lost and found office. I guess after a few drinks it gets easier to misplace things ;-)
• Roughly $2 million in glass beer steins are stolen every year! 

This is the outside of our tent the first day!

The beer steins in our first tent had this really cool design on them.

The food spread both in the tents and outside along the fair grounds is really delicious!! As you can imagine there are lots of sausages, sauerkraut, and pretzels everywhere. Gingerbread is also very popular there. Jeff's favorite, though, is the schnitzel sandwich!!

Jeff is ready to dig in to all the delicious food that was waiting for us at our table day one.

This was my favorite dish!!! The center is like funnel cake meets pancakes. Then there is apple sauce with fresh fruit and a little fruit spread around the sides to mix in with it. It is soooo yummy!! I already have a request in to my Swiss German friends to get this recipe.

Did I mention that each tent has a couple live bands that take turns performing all day?!?
This was the band our second day. I love how the guitar player on the right totally caught me taking their picture. They of course mostly played traditional German drinking songs, but they played a couple very random American songs.
My favorite had to be John Denver's "Country Roads"!!! I couldn't believe it?!?!
Plus all the Germans knew the song by heart too. It was fantastic!!

It's tradition for some drinking songs to stand on your seat to dance and sing along!!!
Why not, right?!?! =)

Jeff and I with one of our great Swiss German friends, Sonja.

Jeff and I with Kristen enjoying the festivities!

A popular aspect of Oktoberfest is to wear traditional German attire for the festivities. This includes a dirndl for the women and lederhosen for the men. Almost everyone who participates in the festivities in the tents is in traditional dress. I felt like I was the obvious tourist the first day. We had to remedy that since Jeff had bought lederhosen his very first year. After a little shopping we were both ready to go for the next day of drinking!!! What do you think?? =)

Jeff and I ready to party it up in true German style!!!

This trip by far was some of the most fun I've had this year!! Everyone you meet is just enjoying the festivities and having a great time!! Plus, we had such a great group of people to party with!! I am definitely crossing my fingers that we get to go again some day!!

Ein prosit der gemütlichkeit!!! (Cheers!!)