After the insanity of last year's Oktoberfest, the expectations were high for this, the 200th Anniversary of the giant Bavarian festival. Mark and I left Friday evening, and arrived in Munich Saturday morning, just in time to line up for the tents.
We wandered around the fairgrounds and somehow found ourselves in line for the Hacker-Pschorr tent. There were tons of people, and once the doors opened at 8, it was a mad dash to get a table. Mark and I found an empty one, and as people continued to flood in, some very nice Germans asked if they could share our table. We happily accepted.
They started serving beer at 9, and we were joined by even more people, most of whose names I actually remembered. All the guys wore lederhosen, and the ladies wore those dresses with their cleavage all out there. It was great.
Speaking of cleavage, this was our waitress. We didn't know her name, so Mark and I just referred to her as "Tits." She knew we needed another beer even before we did.
Last year, we were in the Hofbrau tent, which was great, but there were tons of Americans, Canadians, Australians, and other English-speaking people. But this year, I think we were the only Americans around. I asked Kai why he chose the Hacker-Pschorr tent every year, and he said, "It's the best!" It was definitely a young crowd, but everyone was just there to have a good time.
Every so often, the whole tent would join in drinking songs with lines like, "Ein Prosit der Gemut Lich-cait," which loosely translates to "We're drinking and everyone's comfortable."
Around 4 PM, Mark and I decided we needed to slow down, so we said "Auf wiedersehen" to our new friends and strolled around the fairgrounds for a bit before heading into the city of Munich for dinner and sight-seeing. It was a great ending to a great day. This was my second Oktoberfest, and I can't imagine missing it next year, either.
Also, the full photostream is available here if you'd like to see more blurry pictures of Germans handling their beer better than any American ever could.
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