A Meander through Munich - But First, Oktoberfest!

From Berlin we took a long train journey to Bavaria for a big change of pace.  Munich is at the heart of the Bavaria region, with a lot more Eastern Europe influence, at least architecturally. It has a more polished feel than Berlin, and definitely a completely different vibe.  We arrived at Hopftbanhof in the late afternoon (I was surprised that this was the same name of the train station in Berlin until I realized that Haupftbanhof actually means Central Station) and were immediately excited to see people just walking around the City Center in lederhosen and dirndls!  How fun.  Unfortunately, because we arrived during the very busy Oktoberfest, we needed to get a hotel that was pretty far outside of the city, so our humble abode was the Super 8 Nordring. We took an uber to the hotel and took a long walk to a German burger joint that was actually delicious.  Our waiter was amused by our attempts at German pronunciation so he was one of the lighthearted Germans! Our group expanded to 5 for Munich, as we welcomed Kristyn’s running friend Erin for the party.  After dinner he hung our dirndls up to get the wrinkles out and headed to bed! 

We were told to get to Oktoberfest early to get a spot at a table.  And maybe you have seen the videos of the tents opening on social media, but that is quite an overwhelming feat.  First of all, the weather was cold and rainy. Then we needed extra time for me to relive my designated team hair braider days and do everyone’s braids for the day. The thought of drinking huge mugs of beer starting at 11am, well, we didn’t know where that would lead. But we took a leap of faith onto the metro and headed towards “Oktoberfest”.  

So what surprised me was that the Oktoberfest grounds were very much like a fairgrounds a little outside of the City Center. There were carnival rides everywhere, and booths and food stands along a central thoroughfare.  And then there were these enormous (I mean thousands of people inside) tents where they served each different brand of beer.  I can’t tell you how many of these huge tents there are, but at least 10. There were so many people!  And so many people dressed up in dirndls and lederhosen! So lederhosen are basically suede shorts that the guys would wear with a button down shirt and maybe suspenders.  Some of them also had high socks or leg warmers (sometimes little mini leg warmers that just go over your calf?). The dirndls were all so cute, generally pretty conservative long-ish dresses but stylish and always celebrating cleavage. Mine was a gift from Carolyn because it didn’t fit her, and I had it tailored, and loved it! It was a lace shirt then with a jumper over it and an apron - super simple. 

A few things that surprised me - people used to wear regular street clothes to Oktoberfest until about 20 years ago when there was this revival to wear more traditional clothes. Now it is everywhere, even when we were walking around the city there were shops with fancy dirndls, it’s literally all the rage.  The other thing that is crazy is that about 80% of people who go are actually German. So it is not as touristic as I expected. Oktoberfest is 2 weeks long, and after the 2 weeks is over they take down all the tents and put them in storage until July of the following year.  Incredibly impressive for how big these structures are!

Our first stop was Augustiner-Brau, which was just huge. We actually were able to get a table pretty easily. The crowd was definitely older, a lunch crowd, a lot of people getting food and chit chatting. No dancing on benches (yet). There were food vendors walking around selling pretzels and cheese bread, and then the waitresses were bringing us their single product - a 1.5 liter Maßkrug of Augustiner beer. That’s it, the only option.  Actually I think alcoholfrei is an option but we didn’t choose that :) Our waitress was adorable and could carry a ridiculous amount of beer. They work on commission and basically buy the beer to then sell to the customers. So we had to make sure to tip her a couple euro for our $15 beers.  The whole thing is a cash only operation as well. 

There was a band in the middle of the tent that started playing German songs and about every 10 minutes they played this recognizable song:

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit

Der Gemütlichkeit

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit

Der Gemütlichkeit

After that everyone cheers-ed their enormous Maßkrug and gave the elongated eye contact and drank. It was an easy tradition to pick up on and somehow our first steins went pretty quickly. I broke out my fancy new gold playing cards and we got a mean game of hearts going, which Kristyn won and I lost miserably. The table next to us thought we were actually German because we were playing cards at the table! Ha! 

We stayed for a second beer, and the time flew by.  We had sat at our table originally knowing that there was a label on the table that it was reserved at 5pm. “Oh, we will never be here until 5”, we said.  We left promptly at 5 for the next tent. 

The next tent was beginning to get a bit more rowdy. We arrived at Spatenbrau and promptly were whisked to a partially empty table.  At this point people had started to stand on the benches (standing on tables not allowed) to dance and sing to the music.  Fortunately our bench was against a side wall so it felt a little more stable. But it was great energy!  The live music was awesome.  I definitely didn’t finish the third Maßkrug, maybe not even half of it.  Thankfully one of us ordered the traditional chicken dinner which I housed, more singing and dancing on the benches and then we were ready for the metro ride home, at a respectable 7pm! Ha.  We were in bed by 9pm, after a fabulous day! 

I will share the rest of my Munich adventure in a separate post, but to complete my Oktoberfest stories, I decided to head to Oktoberfest the following night to check out the festivities at nighttime.  This time I got there a about 8:30.  It was just me this time, but such electric energy, so many Germans, and about 2/3 of the beer hall were standing on their benches.  In some cases not even singing or dancing, but just chatting.  I met up with a friend of one of my clients again at Augustiner-Brau, and hung out with a few German natives. One of them, Martin, was die-hard Munich fan.  It was so cool to hear him talk about Munich and how it was the best city in Germany and the world. Another, John, was an American from SoCal who has been living in Germany for the last 40 years. Another great storyteller as well! They toasted a lot… and I definitely struggled to keep up with the beer drinking pace of the crowd! We ended up closing Augustiner and heading to an after-hours bar that I couldn’t tell you the name of, where they served anything except beer. Isn’t there a rhyme about that?  Beer before liquor…. anyway, I survived!  It was really cool to see Oktoberfest at all different times of day and night, and to wear a fun outfit while doing it, that was in true Tarrah style!