Inside Octoberfest

Inside one of the beer tents.

Compared to Beerfest




Note: I found out that in order to get a table you must reserve one a year in advance and pay 600 EU right now thats about $875 US.

What you do is you ask if you can sit at someones table or be invited to sit with someone. I got lucky enough to sit with a German family.


Beerfest the movie, has more similarities than I thought...the chanting (some would chant USA) , enormity of the beer tents, the huge pretzels! The ones from this screen shot are to scale.

Octoberfest

October fest starts in mid September and goes till the 4th of October (i dont know why they call it October if theres only 4 days of it in the month) Septemberfest sounds horrible so they extended the festivities 4 extra days into October.

arial view of Octoberfest.

Outside of the drinking tents it is like a huge fair. They have rides, games, and food- nothing new.

People are herded to Munich and the trains are packed with drunken Kids (legally 15 and older) and Adults who sing typical German drinking songs.

Just trying to get to Octoberfest is an adventure in its own



But its in the courtyards and inside the drinking tents where Beerfest got its inspiration.

Couch Surfing the Way to Munich

We drove by car to Freizing (about 30min outside of Munich- you have to get a permit for your car to drive right into Munich) There was some construction along the road accompanied by sad, happy, and excited faces that depicted how much further you had to drive slowly.


Here is a happy face with only a little further to go ( i missed the sad face )


And the excited face which means you're almost done get ready to let lose and drive however fast you want (only in Germany).

In Freizing we met up with Ernst, a fellow couch surfer who let us stay at his place offered up beer and breakfast. He also happened to live right next to "the oldest brewery in the world." The oldest brewery in the world is believed to be the German state-owned Weihenstephan brewery in the city of Freising, Bavaria. It can trace its history back to 1040 A.D. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewery#History)


This is the restaurant of the brewery



The alternative to paying 250 EU a night (which is considered a good deal during Octoberfest).