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5-11 Oktober, 2008
UPDATE: I had forgotten some photos of the Oktoberfest that Sophie took on her phone. They're now the first few photos on this page:
Sophie's conference BioFilm III was "coincidentally" scheduled to begin the day after the Oktoberfest.
So, we decided to go a day early and have some fun.
In the event, I didn't want to bring an expensive camera in one of the biggest drinking festivals in the world, so most of the photos are of Munich in the days after the Oktoberfest. The first few were taken with a telephone.
We arrived at around 8:00 Sunday evening and walked around the Oktoberfest. After looking at some of the rides we decided to go into the Lowenbrau tent, which holds about 3,000 people.
The tent was filled with picnic tables and benches, and there was a bandstand in the middle.
It was a fantastic amount of fun. The band played oldies and other pop hits, and people stood on the tables to join in with the most popular songs. We met some really nice people who all worked for a German software company, who had come down just for the evening from another city.
Oktoberfest notes:
- the whole even happens in a giant parking area
- it is about 1/2 carnival rides, 3/8 giant halls (tents really) where people sit, drink, and watch concerts
- the smallest beer you can order in the tent we were in was 1 liter I had three
- there may be more -- I don't pretend to have explored all the possibilities
General Munich notes:
- expensive bikes are not attached to anything
- newspaper distributors work on the honor system, they're not locked
- American-style coffeshops abound
- Germans wait for the walk light
- There were an unbelievable quantity of expensive German sports cars
- It was warm
- German is not a latin language and speaking French was not helpful (in contrast with Italy)
- Germans do not seem to speak more or better English than the French, Italians or Spanish
We had a great time.