Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest! We drove into Munich, but parked near an Ubahn (subway) stop far away from the festival to avoid traffic and crowds. We never had to wonder which way to go on the train to get to the festival because we just followed the people wearing lederhosen and dirndls.Notice Elora in her cute lederhosen, which are supposed to be worn by men. Girls wear dirndl dresses (think sound of music). Everyone that walked by Elora thought she was pretty cute though. We agree. We looked for a dirndl for Karen and Elora before we left, but they were too expensive.Another ride! Oliver cried when we left this one. He also cried when we left the bumper cars (no pictues of that ride because we were too busy holding on to the kids!).Oktoberfest started as a wedding celebration in 1810 between Ludwig I and Maria Theresa (parents of crazy king Ludwig, of Neuschwanstein fame). They had such a great time they do it every year in the same spot. It’s a huge mix of carnivals rides, beer and food tents. The beer “tents” are really more like gigantic warehouses.The view from the top of the ferris wheel. You can see the rides off to the right and the huge beer tents on the left. The most popular tents require a reservation, and they fill up 6 months in advance!We dressed warm in the morning and didn’t bring a stroller beccause we knew it would be crowded. So when the weather warmed up, we didn’t have anywhere to put Ollie’s coat. So we just wrapped it around his belt and he waddled around the rest of the day with his awesome little bustle.The different beer companies had these fancy horse teams that pulled wagons with kegs of beer. Those horses really are huge (Chris is 6’3″). Ollie was excited to see them!Since we were there earlier in the day, it was not so crowded. But as you can see it’s still pretty crowded! By the end of the day, thousands more people were pouring into the festival as we were leaving.Elora was excited to go on a pony ride, but she always acts reserved once the camera comes out. Then she talked the rest of the day about the pony and how Ollie would get to ride a pony once he was bigger.Instead of a beer tent, we opted for one of the dessert tents. The kids listened to live music, clapped their hands, stomped their feet and ate some yummy treats!$25 worth of dessert later…we had Kaiserschamrren with plum sauce, chocolate, and cream, a huge glazed donut with tons of vanilla cream in the middle (Vanille Krapfen), and a chocolate mousse cake (not pictured).The dessert tent we ate at was pretty fancy, so naturally Elora really liked it. It was called the Kaiserschmarren.Here is a video of the kids partying to some live music inside the Kaiserschmarren tent. The beer tents are much roudier than this one!
Nice old lady playing an old fashion music box thing.Sweet Oktoberfest hats! Unfortunately we didn’t buy them.Our little girl in her lederhosen eating a chocolate ice cream cone we bribed her with to stop crying after Ollie knocked her over.If you didn’t know better you’d swear that looked like a beer, but it could also be an “Apfel Getsprizt” (half apple juice, half carbonated water). If you were a suspicious person you’d notice we didn’t say what it was.But you can see what Chris is really excited about is the chicken. 500,000 chickens get eaten at Octoberfest every year. One million gallons of beer is consumed as well.For any one from Huntington Beach, you’ll notice the HB logo of the Munich Hofbrauhaus looks very familiar. I wonder which was first?Finally on the way out we stopped to take a picture in front of the Oktoberfest sign and this crazy lederhosen guy apparently wanted to make sure we remembered him as well. This picture pretty much captures the essence of Oktoberfest – crazy guys in lederhosen.The kids were very happy on the drive back to the apartment! Of course, Ollie’s always happy when he takes off his shoes.Not only are we cruising along on the autobahn, but we’re racing a Ferrari too! 220kmph!! Rarrr!! (actually we were stuck in traffic outside of Munich)