Oktoberfest Part II

For those that didn't know our itinerary, we left Berlin on Sunday and traveled by train to Munich, ditching Joe's big bag of cloths in Frankfurt on the way. Today/Monday we went to the official Munich Oktoberfest celebration. Oktoberfest runs the last two weeks of September (I guest to celebrate the coming of October), and we are catching it on the last two days. Today (and maybe tomorrow) was a holiday in Germany, celebrating the Reunification of the country in 1990. The holiday meant there were a ton of locals and other germans who didn't have to skive work to hang out in the tents. We also saw that they start them young on Oktoberfest- there were kids with their families and even some school field trips (ok, maybe they were there for the rollercoasters and other rides, but we did see one school field trip peeking into the Lowenbrau tent). Of course, we also saw what everyone thinks of when they think Oktoberfest- incredibly strong women carrying too many large steins of bier! Note there is NOT a tray under all that beer our waitress above has in one hand!


Joe also made friends with the table of teens behind us- they really liked sharing their snuff with him. Every hour or so they would appear demanding that Joe snort some of the eucalyptus-smelling stuff up a nostril. His first attempt mostly landed on his face and lip, which made one passerby laugh and call Joe Hitler (it was really dark stuff, on his upper lip in a think clump). The American would've never said that, but it was apt. Joe finally learned to say "later, later" on future demands of nose abuse (though he said it in German- he really has learned a lot of German in his time living here).

Even with all the liters of beer and the stuff up Joe's schnoz, I promise we didn't look like these guys at the end of the day (Joe waited to sack out until he was near his own bed!).