“I see that this post is dated October 27(ish). Oktoberfest ended like, 3 weeks ago. Don’t you think you’re writing this a little-”
Don’t worry about it. I promise you that today is not what everybody’s saying it is–something like the 27th. It’s the 6th. Yeah. The 6th.
Coming up with a good excuse to write about Oktoberfest and post videos and pictures of it is turning out to be a little tough. We didn’t see any epic fights, nobody in our group had to square off with security, and nobody got drunk enough to seriously injure their self. So here’s a “5 things” list. 5 Things Foreigners Like Me Might (Might) Not Know About Oktoberfest.
1. We are all animals. I realized this during my second day “on the Wiese” (as all the cool kids say it). We went early in the morning, even before most people were drunk, to meet some friends from other German cities and the Netherlands. Schottenhamel was our destination. We get there, and the line to get in is wrapped around the whole building. But, I can see friends Daniel and Alvaro a ways up in line. Because of what it takes to get into one of these Zelte, people who cut in line undoubtedly have a special ring in Hell reserved for them, so that was out of the question. I did want to go say “hello,” though, so up I went.
Daniel and Alvaro are grinning, and I go to shake their hands. “Hey, what’s going on, g-”
Someone on my right shoves me so that I bounce a few yards to my left. “Go!” yells a squat man, maybe 30 years old, with shoulders that touch his ears. “You can’t be here, get away from him!”
I’m standing next to a line in the middle of public, so I’m not out of bounds, or anything. He seems to be trying to prevent me from cutting in line. Maybe tons of people do that.
“Sorry, man. I was just saying hello to my-”
“Go, now!” Now, he’s approaching me. His nostrils are flared, and he’s wearing his brow like a welding visor.
Yikes, better leave. “See you guys inside,” I tell Daniel and Alvaro, and then I head back to the line where Roxana has our place.
At first, I thought that guy was just a rogue turd basket taking his bad day out on Oktoberfest attendees. I now think differently, because that kind of behavior is definitely a trend among the event’s security reps–pushing, moving in your way until you throw away your outside drink, dragging you down from a table and pushing you outside. It all seems pretty intense. But, I think they do it for a reason.
Oktoberfest is 17 days of insanity wrought by about 7 million attendees from all around the world. The normal population of Munich is about 4 million, and it would seem that a sizable chunk of the local population go on vacation during Oktoberfest. Many of those attendees are drunk the entire time. If I’m working security at an event like that, then I’ve probably seen things, man. Thing I dream about when it’s cold and rainy outside. And maybe part of me is terrified of doing this, again.
2. There’s an entire weekend (unofficially) devoted to Italy. It’s called “Italian Weekend.” During that weekend, Italy comes to Munich, and all the Germans I know stay home. That’s all I know about Italian Weekend.
3. Schottenhamel and Hippodrom are the “Zelt” names you should know. “Zelt,” according to Google Translate, is the German word for “Tent.” Google Translate is known to drink itself into an incomprehensible stupor when you ask it to reconcile German with English, though, so I’m not sure a German tent is the same thing as a rest-of-the-world tent. Two reasons I think this:
a) “Hey Googs, what up!? Have a question for you, man. My sister just had a baby, and I want to tell my German friends about it. What do I say?”
(Hiccup) “Hey, man! You’re the guy! Sure, I’d love to…um…help!” (hiccup) “Well, um…” (hiccup) “you might try ‘Meine Schwester hatte ein Kind.'” (hiccup)
I’m squinting, trying to figure out if I should trust him. “Um, okay Googs. I’ll see what happens.”
—1 day later—
“Thanks, jerk!” I say. “Do you know how sad everyone got when I told them what you told me to say?”
“Duuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh…”
The problem with what I said is that, in German, you say “Meine Schwester hat ein Kind bekommen,” not “Meine Schwester hatte ein Kind.” Google told me to say “My sister had a baby,” when Germans really say “My sister received a baby.” The natural question that follows my announcement is “Oh my God, what happened to it? Where’s the baby, now?”
So I never trust Google with my German questions.
b) A “Zelt” looks like this:
Would you call that a “tent?”
Anyway, you should know what Schottenhamel and Hippodrom are before you go to Oktoberfest. Schottenhamel is the rowdy Zelt, while Hippodrom is the classy Zelt. Here, what “classy” means is that people are more or less in their seats the whole time, and fewer people are ever at risk of drunkenly stumbling off a balcony.
We went to Hippodrom with some friends who had reserved a table about a year ago. The tables are just big enough for 8 people to sit at them, the inside of the tent is filled with bright colors and statues, and the band is elevated above the ground floor on its own platform. Most of the people there seemed to be making the evening all about simply talking and drinking with their group of friends, and one of my German friends is of the opinion that that’s mostly how things go at Hippodrom. Here are some views of the inside from our table:
Shottenhamel, on the other hand, is more of a party-with-randos tent. We were there for 3 hours in the morning (9am-noon), and it was definitely rowdier than Hippodrom. Maybe 20 minutes after we sat down on the second floor, a guy a few tables down climbed up onto the railing and lifted his glass, looking around. Instantly, everyone around us began cheering and chanting for him to drink his whole liter of beer without a pause. He started, and kept drinking as the cheering turned into an excited roar. Halfway through, two of those big security guys from before showed up and tried to drag him down from the railing. But, the guy wasn’t ready to leave. He finished chugging the beer while fighting off security with his free hand. Finally, he finished the beer, and the crowd roared approval while security dragged him down the steps and threw him out of the Zelt. This happened, plus or minus the security guys, about every 20 minutes. Here’s what the inside of Schottenhamel looks like (I didn’t bring the camera that day, so here’s something from Google images):
4. You can only get into most “Zelte” with reservations–months to a year in advance. I don’t have much to say about this, except that we’re extremely lucky that our friends had space free at the table they reserved a year ago. This is just something you should know before you go–it’s never too early to try to get seats in a Zelt.
5. Oktoberfest is when Munich lets itself go absolutely nuts. A friend of mine was yelled at by his neighbor when he threw his garbage in the dumpster at 8am, because it made too much noise. Housework on Sunday is illegal for the same reason. Walk around the city during the week, and you see people passing the time simply by sitting and looking at one another. Or, they’re in a park, lying on the grass. And that’s it. If it’s the end of September, though, and you hear this song, then you’d better pick up your beer and jump up onto a table: