James and I are recouping today from our trip to Munich yesterday. So many beers, so little time. It was a short trip, but it was jam packed with fun! We traveled with one of the bus services on base called RTT and we left at 3am on Saturday morning so we would get there in time for the opening festivities. We got home last night a little after midnight and besides a quick shower, I went straight to bed.
SIDE NOTE: I did manage to toss my toothbrush in the toilet from the super quick shower last night/or this morning so we had to brave the ever-so-popular BX (Sunday’s are the worst!) this afternoon so I could get a new one but other than that, I haven’t been out of bed. It’s the perfect day to stay in bed…super gloomy.
It was super gloomy when we got to the fest yesterday.
This is Julia and her sister. We were all trying to stay dry!!
James had to use my pink umbrella and then decided to buy his own about 5 min before it stopped raining.
The rain didn’t last for long and we had mostly great weather for Oktoberfest. I did end up with a sunburn because the sun was so warm and bright almost the entire day.
I may be in bed today…but it didn’t stop me from uploading all of my pictures from our trip. I made an album on Facebook with the majority of the pictures but I wanted to share a couple with you so can feel like you were there.
First a little background…
Oktoberfest plays an important role in in Bavarian culture. It’s hard to meet anyone who hasn’t at least heard of this festival. It’s been going on for 201 years! Our tour guide, Anne, told us that the first year Oktoberfest started was actually a wedding between the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and his Princess Therese. They organized a horse race in the same area that the festival is held now the area is actually named after the princess.
A couple more Oktoberfest facts:
Beer wasn’t served until 1818
the daily visitor average is 375,000
there are 14 large beer tents
only 6 breweries are permitted to serve at the Oktoberfest beer halls.
women traditionally wear Dirndls and you can tell her “status”. She is single, engaged, or married if it is on the right. front/middle indicates she’s a virgin and back means she is widowed.
men wear Lederhosen (knee-length leather shorts)
We got to the parade about 45 minutes before it was supposed to start and we still didn’t have a supreme picture taking spot. I used all 45 minutes though, to squeeze my way up to the rope and even though half of my parade pictures are from me squatting down and taking pictures between people’s legs, I managed to get a ton of photos!
All of this beer was going into one “tent”
there were a lot of bands
So many horse drawn carriages..and many of the floats were pulled by horses as well
I loved getting pictures of the people waving on the floats
I learned that there is no beer served until after the mayer of Munich taps the first keg and there is a 12 gunshot salute. This is all done after the parade so the boys brought a couple of beers each to hold them over and then we grabbed a beer after as well.
The boys and their first beers
Cheers!
the gang having beers
Once we had some german beer in our systems, we decided it was ride time! We did some of the same ones from last week at wine fest but we also threw some new ones in the mix. I was legitimately scared on one of them…it went 100 km/hr and made me thankful that it pinched my thighs like never before.
See James and I waving?!?
This was the scary ride. SOO FAST
I loved taking pictures of this ride but I didn’t ride it myself.
See James falling off the bench?
I can’t describe to you how good the chocolate covered strawberries were. So good, in fact, that I didn’t even manage to get a picture of them before I scarfed them down. I also had fries and a very very long hot dog. I decided that paprika ketchup is not my favorite. It’s so much different than ketchup at home. I miss it.
Here is James and I with our XXL hotdogs
Gingerbread necklaces
I had so much fun that it made the long bus ride home worth it….and it was a long bus ride home. I made some new friends and got to have another German adventure with my hot husband.
Howdy, I’m Jen!
I’m a Texas native, Georgia obsessed, and currently Wisconsin residing, natural light photographer. I focus mostly on making couples look magical on the day they say “I do” but I’m available for all of your photography needs!