Two Octoberfest Experiences

This past month, I've been lucky enough to join the crowds at two different Oktoberfests -- first, the opening day of the massive, world-famous Oktoberfest in Munich on September 21 and then a few Saturdays ago at our local Oktoberfest in my little neighboring village of Dingden.

For my birthday weekend in mid-September, I got an amazing invitation. I, along with two other Partnership International (PI) friends from language camp, Alexa and Heidi, were invited to stay the weekend with our friend Romel's host family in their little town in Bavaria and go to the opening day at the real deal Oktoberfest. Romel lives only about a 40-minute train ride from the main train station in Munich, which is just a short walk from the Oktoberfest fairgrounds. This Oktoberfest is massive, even more than I could have imagined. Not only did the fest grounds have 17 football field sized tents representing each of the Munich breweries, but also a vast amusement park strapped on, too, with every kind of ride imaginable. There were also all kinds of people there. We met people from Australia, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, and, of course, Germany and the USA. Anywhere you looked you would see huge rides or tents and, not surprisingly, an insane number of drunk people. Romel's host family came with us and helped us get our bearings. It was a sunny day, so at first we hung out in a patio area outside one of the big tents, which was great for people-watching. When we finally jostled our way inside one of the fest tents, we were welcomed by a live band playing the traditional German fest music as well as songs like Sweet Caroline and Take Me Home Country Roads. When we got hungry, there were plenty of vendor stands selling things like pretzels, bratwurst, and french fries, which are called pommes (pomm-ess) here. There were also special tents that served sit-down meals of more upscale traditional German food, but we never made it into one of those. I felt a little out of place because, unlike the rest of my group and most people there, I didn’t have the full traditional trachtenmoden outfit on. Luckily, Romel's host dad lent me a red checked shirt, so I didn't stick out quite as much. Surprisingly, most people at the Munich Oktoberfest were wearing lederhosen or dirndls, even if they were the cheap ones you could buy just outside the entrance. I wasn’t going to spend money on cheap lederhosen, but I definitely plan to eventually invest in a full high quality set of trachtenmoden for future fests. Oktoberfest in Munich was an amazing experience, even more so because I got to spend it with three of my favorite people from language camp. We rode a bunch of the crazy amusement park rides (here are some examples), ate everything that looked interesting, people-watched, made new friends, stood on the benches in our fest tent and sang loudly with our literally thousands of tent-mates, and really made the most of our one day in Munich. For me, it was 100% worth the long trip from where I live in the northwest part of Germany to Bavaria.

Then in early October, I went to the Oktoberfest in the village next to mine, called Dingen, which was obviously a little bit different. Where the Oktoberfest in Munich runs every day and night for over two weeks, Dingen's Oktoberfest is a big one-night party. Obviously, it was much smaller than the one in Munich and is set up and hosted by a local young men's shooting or marksmanship club called Jungschützenverein Dingden, which looks like a club I'd love to be part of. But don’t get me wrong, even though our Dingden fest was small, it was still very fun and lively. Compared to the one in Munich, there were only locals at this Oktoberfest and only one big fest tent. Food wise, there were about four food trucks at one end of the tent who were serving things similar to the food stands in Munich. Like Munich Oktoberfest, there was also a live band that played traditional rowdy fest music, but our Dingden band was much smaller than the 20-person Oktoberfest orchestras. To this Oktoberfest, I went with my host brother Linus and a few of the other PI exchange students in our region – Max, Alleah, Elizabeth, Brian and Adelade – as well as the host parents of one of them. We all got to ride in a wagon pulled by a tractor from the host family's house to the big fest tent. It was a cheerful group, and I also ran into some kids I go to school with in Bocholt, another town nearby. Overall, it was a super fun experience even though it was much smaller. I feel like I experienced both ends of the Oktoberfest spectrum in Germany, and I am hoping to visit many more festivals of all sizes during my next eight months here.

I'm attaching a few pictures here from each fest. I didn't manage to take very many at the Dingden fest, so some of the photo credits go to the Jungschützenverein Dingden Instagram account.