Oktoberfest

Today is October first. Is that the reason I am writing about Oktoberfest? Well that has nothing specific to do with Oktoberfest. Just that I was there last year, same day, I wanted share my experience of Oktoberfest. It was an ultimate experience.

Taking off from Chennai, we landed at Frankfurt and took a connecting flight to Munich. It was around 9 AM that we landed at Munich. We were about 15 of us. The hosts had come to the Airport to pick us up.Our program was to start in the evening at a place called Ising, in Bavaria. So we had the day at our disposal.

The hosts were so good that they had planned for a short tour of the city before arriving at Ising. As we went to a couple of places, we pushed them to take us to Oktoberfest. We did not get a lot of time but managed to “experience” Oktoberfest.

I had to see to believe that Oktoberfest is the worlds largest public event.Truly it was. People just come here to drink beer. And nothing else. This is a event that happens for just about two weeks, ending on the first Sunday of October.

The best part is most of the local people come there dressed in their ethnic attire. It looks sooooo good and beautiful. There is so much of music, fun and celebration. The entrance itself was so heavily crowded that Ranganathan street in Tnagar looked puny.

Just to get a perspective and the sheer size of the event.

• 6 million people visit this place in two weeks(about 4 lakhs a day!!!!!)
• Over 6 million litres of beer is consumed during this period
• There are about 1600 waitress (who serve the beer) employed just for this period
• There is seating capacity for one lakh people..!!!!!!

Now this is just a small example of the grand size of the event.

The beer is brought into the each tent by horse carts in wooden casks. I was amazed at looking the horses. They looked like elephants!!!!!!!. So huge were the horses. The people in the horse cart were dressed traditionally and people around played music to bring the beer.

I couldn’t believe that people just leave everything and come there and just drink beer. Do nothing else but drink beer. The interesting part is the beer here is served in 1 litre mugs. My god. They were so huge and when I saw one litre mugs, the pitchers seen in our local pubs seemed small..;)..!!! To my utter surprise these beer mugs were served by these waitress, who carry anywhere between six to eight mugs in their hands and serve it to people. If they don’t, they wont be able to serve so many of them. Even lifting one litre mug itself is a challenge..;) imagine these waitress lifting six mugs at a time and walking across the tent.

“Tent” is nothing but a structure built just for the event by a specific beer house. There are several of them with some of the largest holding more than 5000 people at one tent. We visited Hofbräu, which is sponsored by Hofbräuhaus. I had visited Hafbrauhaus during my previous visit to Germany. Thats one of the oldest beer shops around and they say if you go to Munich , you should not miss Hofbräuhaus. Its the second home for many people there..;) Ok.. later on Hofbräuhaus. Hofbrau tent was so huge and had several thousand people all drinking beer.

We then entered another tent,I don’t remember the name. This was also huge. Just look at the number of people beering..

We just came out and started looking at some of the other tents. This one , Hacker-Festzelt, is one of the largest tents.

We also made sure we took a souvenir from the place. Nothing but a half a ltr beer glass..

Germans have the highest per capita consumption of beer across the world. This event no doubt makes them maintain the lead.

BTW, don’t label me by combining the previous post and this one. They just happened as a coincidence. !!!!!!

1 in 1two3ty1

1

Here’s goes the number 1 in 1two3ty1.

Cant ask for a better start to this for the nice game that Ranjhith has started…:)

Update:

For knowing where this number was found, check out the links below.

The number 1 here is spotted on the Vodka bottle.

Is there a better way to start the 1two3ty1 challenge than by having this photo and say cheers to Ranjhith?

And cheers to all the participants of 1two3ty1.