Saturday, September 18, 2010

Vintage Oktoberfest

Since Oktoberfest began 200 years ago it is more of a celebration than ever, although this is a photo of the calm before the storm. Vendors were finishing their set ups and Theresienwiese was relatively quiet.

The old-fashioned area with old rides, costumes, animals, and horse races opened the day before the actual kick off, so we were happy to take part in the festivities. It costs 4€ to enter, but it's definitely worth checking out. After all Jubileumswiesn was 200 years in the making!

The animal area is very impressive. They have sheep, cows, horses, rabbits, turkeys, and freshly hatched chicks.

Keeping with the Oktoberfest theme there is plenty of beer, but the beer in the Jubileums area is slightly different. All 6 breweries got together to help in creating it the old way straight from the wooden kegs and it's available at the Festzelt for 8.80€ / litre. It's a bit stronger in taste and alcohol.

It appeared as though many tourists didn't realize it was happening, because there weren't as many people as I would have expected.

On our way over I was talking to our cab driver about the supposed controversy between several brothels in the area. One is said to give the cabbies 120€ / person they bring, so the other brothel is complaining. He said since he's a day driver he doesn't know too much about it, but he did say he had a Turkish business man that wanted a 'typical German woman'. He wasn't sure what that meant, so he took him to several brothels to check out the ladies. The cab driver said the Turkish man found one he liked, but she was the cleaning lady and her services weren't for sale. Cab driver stories are always so random.

Amazingly we were his first trip to Oktoberfest this year.

In the Festzelt there were traditional Goaßlschnalzen whip crackers and locals with their festive costumes and kitted out tracht.

It makes me love our city that much more - they definitely know how to celebrate and incorporate tradition at every turn. They also make things so family friendly.

This is a great site to buy Oktoberfest decor and celebrate yourself if you're not able to make it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Emily,
Long time i have not checked out your blog. I am now in France and wanted to know what's been going on in Munich , i know your blog is a good place for it ;-)
I love the stamps. Can you just buy them at a post office?

Oom

Emily said...

Ooh! I bet France is lovely!

Yes, I believe the post office is the only place to buy them. They printed 7 million or so, but I had to go to 2 post offices to get them - the first one was sold out!