Germany Part I - Opening Day at Oktoberfest in Munich

A few years back, Aaron and I went to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver with friends. It was the ultimate beer-tasting festival. This past weekend, we went to the opening weekend of Oktoberfest in Munich with seven friends. I can now say that Oktoberfest it is the ultimate beer-drinking festival.

It was everything you would expect: everywhere you look there are huge crowded tents, neon carnival rides, Bavarian food stands, boisterous live bands, massive beer steins, and decorative dirndls (women's Bavarian dresses) and lederhosen (men's Bavarian leather breeches).

For those of you that are thinking of going at some point in your life, all I can say is go. Add it to your bucketlist. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity where people from all different countries have been having one giant, happy Bavarian party together since 1810.  What's not to love?

A few notes about the festival:

• The majority of us dressed up and I'm glad we did. Almost everyone was in Bavarian clothing.
• You really have to drink beer if you go. They didn't have many other options for alcohol easily accessible and even water wasn't free.
• Each tent saves roughly 35% of the tables inside for people who don't have a reservation. But if you want to get a seat at one of these tables, you have to go early, and if you want to drink beer, you have to have a seat. We didn't have a table so on opening day, we got in line beginning at 8am with the other no-reservation people. They opened the doors to the tent at 9am and luckily we ended up squeezing in at a table with some nice people from California, but it was a mad dash and very disorganized.
• If you stand on your bench (which you likely will do), don't bring your beer with you otherwise the entire crowd will think you are about to chug it and cheer you on (see photo in the upper right hand corner).  Unless, of course, you want to chug but beware: if you don't finish the whole stein, they boo you!
• The tents also have beer gardens outside. I'm being nice when I say the weather this past weekend was iffy... at times pouring rain, thunder and lightning. On the second day, we went back to the festival around 6pm and all the tents were packed. We ended up just grabbing steins from an outside beer garden- it was much cooler and less packed. A little on and off sprinkling rain never hurt anyone : )
• The waitresses really do carry 12+ huge steins at a time. I could barely lift four at once! Also, we learned this "tip" a little too late: tip your waitress when she comes by your table and you will be one of the first group to get served.

And one more fun fact: in 2013, 6.4 million people went to the 16-day festival, and 6.7 million liters of beer were served at Oktoberfest. Wonder what the 2014 count will be at?

Prost!