Alaaf! This year’s WEBMU (Whiny Expat Blogger Meet-Up) took place in Cologne. Our hosts Resident Evil on Earth, Cheap as Chips, and Futile Diatribes did an excellent job of putting together a fun-filled agenda for all of us. » Read the full post
You may have heard that you need to be sitting inside (or on the terrace of) a tent to be served beer at Oktoberfest. This is mostly true. Indeed, it is the only way you’ll be able to get your hands on a big old maß (liter) of special Oktoberfest brew. But if you don’t mind drinking weißbier (wheat beer) in small vessels (only half liter), head for one of the many outdoor stands that serve it up. You’ll need to drink your weißbier in the general vicinity of where you bought it, but these little areas are often quite pleasant places to hang out. I tend to prefer them to the hot, loud, sweaty insides of a tent, especially on a beautiful sunny day. » Read the full post
5 comments
This is our fourth Oktoberfest as locals. Since leaving my parents’ house at 18, I’ve never lived anywhere else for more than three years, so this is kind of weird for me. I’m not used to doing things for a fourth time.
But here I am, getting out the dirndl (paired with sensible shoes for dancing on wooden benches) for Oktoberfest number four. Conversations with friends all include an exchange of details about which tents we will be in on which nights. The guest room is booked for almost a month straight with various configurations of friends and family. » Read the full post
4 commentsNo matter what lazy travel writers want you to believe, there’s no Chicken Dance at Oktoberfest in Munich. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, stop taking their travel advice immediately, lest you start looking like an arm-flapping fool everywhere you go. Instead, spend your Oktoberfest prep time (only a week to go!) learning these dances, which are sure to come in handy in each and every tent. » Read the full post
10 commentsUPDATE: The historical section of Oktoberfest was such a hit that it will be back in 2011, rebranded as the Oide Wiesn. Nostalgia and beer for everyone!
Entrance to Oktoberfest in general is free, but this year, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the first Oktoberfest, visitors were offered the privilege of paying for entry to a small section of the wiesn. This section promised something special: old-timey fun. » Read the full post
3 comments
Somehow we managed to survive another whole Oktoberfest, concluding with a day in the Schützen Festzelt. This is the largest tent at Oktoberfest, and they really know how to pack in the people.
As we were ordering up our first round of beers the tent shook with a mighty loud boom. Everyone jumped a bit except for the waitress, who calmly explained that they were doing some last-day-of-Oktoberfest ceremonial shooting over on the steps to the Bavaria statue, right next to the tent. There were more booms to come, so we might as well get used to it.
The feel and atmosphere inside the Schützen Festzelt was similar to that in the other large beer tents, and the food was about average for Oktoberfest tent food. Unlike most of the other tents, though, this tent had wines (and even weinschorle) on the menu in addition to beer. Can’t wait to bring Em there next year.
The creepy mannequins attached to the walls were pretty cool, too.
The Kaiserschmarrn looked better than it tasted.
And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen: another year of Oktoberfest behind us. Whew.
5 commentsComplete the following sentence:
In anticipation of Oktoberfest, we should ______.
A. Start drinking more, to build up our tolerance.B. Stop drinking entirely, to let our livers rest up before the big event.
C. Other (please specify).
It’s less than a month away!
Munich’s postmark (‘city of world-famous beers’).
7 commentsCan you post some guidance for Oktoberfest ahead of the event this year for those of us who want to attend? (At least I no longer think it’s in Oktober 
)
OK, so my last post containing Oktoberfest tips was not particularly comprehensive. This time I will do better.
To start with the very basics, Oktoberfest is a giant festival consisting of beer tents, rides, and vendors selling carnival food and souvenirs. It takes place at Munich’s Theresienwiese (often referred to as the Wiesen or Wies’n) and runs for around 16 days starting in the second half of September (this year it’s September 19th – October 4th). Entrance is free, and everything else is pretty expensive. Tents open at 10:00AM (9:00 on weekends) and close at 11:30PM. There are 14 large tents and a handful of smaller ones.
You have to be in a tent (or on a tent’s patio) and sitting down at a table to get beer. (OK, so there’s also the beery-go-round, but that’s not what you came to Oktoberfest for.) This sitting-at-a-table-waiting-for-beer is sometimes not as easy as it sounds. Pretty much all of the tents get full to capacity every day of the festival, at which time the doors are closed and guarded by big, angry (and sometimes bribable) bouncers. This happens by the early evening on weekdays and by about 9:05AM on weekends.
If you’ve been fortunate enough to get inside a tent, it’s now time to get down to the business of finding yourself a seat. Many tables will have reserved signs on them, usually with a starting time for the reservation. If you are there well in advance of the reservation time, you may usually sit at the table and be served beer, and the waitress will kick you out at the appropriate time. All tents have a section of tables that are never reserved, usually near the center of the tent.
Unless you’ve arrived at 10:00AM on a Monday, don’t expect to find an entire empty table all for you. Choose a table with some available space, ask the people there if the seats are free (Ist hier noch frei?) and sit down. The waitress will be by more quickly than you expect. You’ll find a crumpled, soggy menu somewhere on the table. It will list a variety of heavy foods, a couple of non-alcoholic drinks, and beer, which only comes by the liter and in one variety. Be glad you don’t have to spend too much time thinking about what to drink.
If you want to be able to easily find a seat, the best time to go to Oktoberfest is on a weekday in the morning or early afternoon. As long as you keep consuming food and drinks (and you sit at an unreserved table), you can stay as long as you like.
At times when the tents are full, it’s still often possible to find a spot on a tent’s patio. There you can eat and drink, but you’ll miss out on the music and atmosphere going on in the tent. Although tents are usually full by the early evening each day, sometimes they open up again later on, after the early shift of drinkers starts crawling their way home.
If you insist on attending Oktoberfest on a weekend without a reservation, do this to get into a tent: arrive at the Wiesen by 8 AM, choose a tent, and stand in the large mass of people outside the door. When they start letting people in a little before 9, make a run for the tables and start looking for one without a reservation sign (or one that is reserved just for the evening – you’ll be ready to leave by then). Cell phones are useful in this scenario, as the people in your party can split up and whoever finds a table first can call the others. Enjoy that 9 AM beer.
All of the large tents have live music for most of the day (starting around 11). The daytime band is usually oompa-like and somewhat traditional. At some point during the afternoon they will be switched out for a younger, hipper band which will assault your ears with Walking on Sunshine and Cowboys und Indianer. This is usually the time when the dancing on the benches commences. Be prepared to jump up and join in or find your head surrounded by gyrating leather-clad asses.
And on that note, I think I’ll wrap this post up. I’ll post a couple of follow-ups in the coming weeks as Oktoberfest draws nearer. If you have any specific questions, ask away!
—
Ask the Expat is a semi-regular feature here at This non-American Life. If you have a question for me, go to this post to find out how to submit it.
Look familiar?
Ah, springtime in Munich. On the heels of the Starkbierfest comes the Frühlingsfest, or spring festival, which takes place on the Theresienwiese, Munich’s famous Oktoberfest fairgrounds. With just two one-story beer tents, Frühlingsfest is much smaller than Oktoberfest, but the general idea is the same: carnival rides, carnival food, and drunken crowds in beer tents dancing on benches and singing along to Ein Stern and Country Roads.
A local friend of ours poo-pooed the idea of going to the Frühlingsfest, claiming it was a festival for the redneck set. Between the fight I saw in the ladies’ restroom and the fact that the band played Achy Breaky Heart, I can’t really disagree with him. But I still had fun. Plus it was easy to find a seat!
Classy how there are topless women decorating the rides, no?
I promise my next post about Munich will not involve beer. Surely there’s something else going on in this city…
4 comments
