Oktoberfest 2011

My husband and I went to Oktoberfest in Munich with some friends of ours, on Saturday. What a blast!! It was so different from what I expected. I was expecting tents, beer, Germans in traditional dress, foreigners in slutty fake traditional dress, polka bands and drunk people. I was not expecting that it was so much like the Iowa State Fair, except with the above stated expectations.
The place in Munich where Oktoberfest is held is a permanent place, the tents are actual buildings that don't move. Surrounding the permanent "tents" are all sorts of carnival rides and food vendors. The availability of beer is there, but you can't carry it all over the place and it is served in glass glasses with the name of the beer that you are drinking, no drinking European beer from a plastic cup. So you don't walk off with the glasses since they don't want broken glass everywhere. Well, you can, but you paid a deposit on the glass, so to get your 3 EU back per beer, you give the glass back. (we came home with 3 glasses, with the 9 EU of deposits that we lost)
The food stands are very similar to what you'd see at a state fair, minus the funnel cakes and fried oddities. (I looked everywhere for German funnel cake and could not find it) There were different meats, sandwiches, sweets and pastries. Heaven. There were also some alcohol stands not involving beer, margaritas and vodka red bull can be served in plastic, apparently. We had a very tasty bratwurst on delicious bread and a steak sandwich that was decent and chocolate fruit that was amazing.
We weren't able to get tickets into the tents, that needed to be done months and months ahead of time and July just wasn't ahead enough. To make up for that, we went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner. http://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/en/index_en.html This place just what I would expect from Oktoberfest. Tables and tables of people singing and drinking and eating great food, listening to the oom-pah music. My husband made friends with some "seasoned citizens" that were all over him. Actually, they made friends with him by hugging him, looking at him closely in the face, speaking to him in German and hugging him again. Oh, was he red. It was one of the highlights of the night, really.
I really don't know if we need to drive the 7 hours to Munich again next year for Oktoberfest since our friends will be back in the states, but I am so glad that I was able to experience it. The Germans at SHAPE do their own Oktoberfest here and bring in everything from Germany themselves, including their own tent. It was this weekend too, so we didn't get to go. The tickets for Friday night sold out the first afternoon and Saturday sold out the next day. You better believe that's where we'll be next year!
Prost!