7 Surprising Facts You Didn't Know About Oktoberfest

September is here and that means it’s time for my favorite festival of the year: Oktoberfest! Americans easily know the holiday—though we often celebrate it fallaciously in October—as a day filled with weird leather shorts and suspenders, German beers, and the chicken dance. But there’s so much more to the real thing than that.

I’ve heard people tell me that there are Oktoberfests all over Germany and that the best ones are in the small towns. This is only nominally true. The only real Oktoberfest is in Munich, and it lasts for about four weeks: the last two weeks of September and the first of October. While there are other beer and village festivals in Bavarian villages throughout the season, they are very rarely called Oktoberfest.

the only real Oktoberfest

I made this mistake taking my parents to Nuremberg a few years back. There was no Oktoberfest, but instead some lame flea market festival called the Old Town Festival (more on that next week, though the festival was lame, the town is awesome). There are exceptions though, as HB Haus, no matter where the branch, will always have an Oktoberfest party, but that’s usually just for a weekend.

More commonly are other cities in other countries using the name to celebrate German beer and wacky dance culture. Here in Prague, they celebrate it on the last weekend of September, and have notably, and in the typically Czech cheeky way, renamed it Septemberfest.

If you’re staying somewhere in Bavaria, like in Prague or Salzburg, it’s not hard to get to Oktoberfest, especially if you’re in a group. Check out the Deutsche Bahn train system’s Bayern Pass. It’s a day long transit pass on all DB vehicles that starts at 25 euro, plus 3 euro per extra passenger, and the border of the Bayern Pass extends a little past Bavaria—for instance, to Plzen, Czech Republic and to Salzburg, Austria. So say if you and your friends want to stay in the beautiful Austrian town at the base of the Alps, you can ride that in for the day. Or maybe you want to stay in a village instead of the busy and loud city of Munich? Use the Bayern Pass. The park where the Oktoberfest takes place is only about a 15-minute walk from the train station. And it's easy to find, just follow the hordes of goofily dressed Germans.

So, here’s some facts about Oktoberfest that you may or may not have known:

1. The Oktoberfest in Munich is a family celebration

It’s true. Drinking and family aren’t necessarily separate things in Europe—except maybe in sports bars and casinos. Most places provide other activities for non-drinkers, and this is especially true at Oktoberfest. They put up a huge amusement park with tons of rides like rollercoasters, swirly things, upside down things, and the usual works you’d find at a Six Flags.

rollercoasters, haunted houses, great drunk fun!

When I first was there, I didn’t really understand the culture behind this. I just thought, “Woah, drunk people and loop-dee-loops, someone wasn’t thinking this through.” But they were. They have all that to include the family in (the same is true for the winter festival at Hyde Park in London, it’s really a drinking festival but has tons of amusement rides). There is plenty to do for everyone, so don’t be too afraid of including the kiddoes. Unless you’re an embarrassingly sloppy drunk.

the ferris wheel might not unsettle the stomach that much...

2. It happens in a series of big tents

Each beer company puts up a huge tent with hundreds and hundreds of seats. They serve the beer and the food here. The food is all typical Bavarian fare, like pork knuckle, schnitzel, and other giant schnogs of meat. Make sure to have your seat in the tent of the beer you like, because they usually only serve the Oktoberfest brew of that brand.

a good representation of the food on this tent entrance

The tents are the real fun. Germans will get up on the tables, sing songs, dance, splash beer around, and generally look pretty goofy because they all wear lederhosen—long leather capris with suspenders—and have hats with feathers.

If you want a spot in a tent though, you typically need to reserve it one year in advance for peak periods like weekends. If not, forget about it. On weekdays it might be possible to get a seat if you show up right when the park opens in the morning.

inside the Spaten tent

That said, you can walk through the tents without reservation, and still see the merriment. Around the park, most beer companies also set up fairly huge beergardens, so you’ll still have easy access to your favorite brew even without the tent. This is actually my preferred method, since you can wander around and try the different beers.

3. Oktoberfest was first celebrated for a wedding

It was first celebrated in 1810, when the Crown Prince Ludwig I married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hilburghausen. At that time, Bavaria was its own kingdom and Munich the capital. For the wedding, the Crown Prince invited all of the citizenry to celebrate just outside the gates of the city, for horse races and beer. He even renamed the area Thereisenwiese, or Therese’s Meadow, in honor of his bride. It remained undeveloped and has been used as a fairground to this day.

inside the Hacker-Pschorr tent

The party was apparently so great, Ludwig I decided to repeat it every year after, and eventually the annual festival became a part of Bavarian culture, each year expanding to include new carnival-style activities.

4. Oktoberfest is mainly in September

As Ludwig’s wedding was in the middle of October, he wanted the big partying to be done with well in advance. So he put it in the weeks leading to October, finishing on the first weekend. That’s why it’s called Oktoberfest, because it’s celebrating the big event that was to take place in October, his wedding!

5. It’s filled with breasts!

It really is. Any breast fan would be wise to go. After Mardi Gras in New Orleans, this is likely the most (family friendly) boob-filled event in the world. Unlike in Mardi Gras though, there are no flashing of the cans, only glorious tracts of cleavage. Everywhere.

a drndle, pretzel, and beer: you can't get more German

The drndle is the traditional outfit of Bavarian maids and maidens, and is far superior to the man’s outfit. It’s an all-around cute dress that really highlights some of the best aspects of a woman, and women of every weight and body-style look good wearing them. It really is a magic dress. Even if you don’t have breasts, just put on a drndle and you’ll have them!

On the other hand, men wear lederhosen. As I’ve explained, they’re basically leather capris held up by suspenders. Nobody looks good wearing them. This was obviously a secret plot hatched by the Matriarchy five centuries ago.

a man in lederhosen with his girls in drndles

6. It’s big because America

Oktoberfest was a pretty local festival for the longest time. The first time it was pumped up to be a national event was by the Nazis just before World War II. But then it was way too fun, so the Nazis canceled the event altogether. It was then held each year after World War II, but kind of on a much smaller level.

In the United States though, it was gaining weight as a cultural attraction and funfest. As outdoor drinking is almost unheard of, the fact that there was a festival where it was encouraged to do this really became a big hit. Even bigger than what it was in Germany, if you add up all the attendees of all the Oktoberfests throughout the US.

After the wall came down and the terrorist threat from the Baader-Meinhof gang stymied, Germany was deemed a safe place to travel by adventurous Americans. Americans with German backgrounds, those with military backgrounds, and those who just loved drinking outdoors all began to flock to Munich every September.

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you don't need German to go, but it is eine gute Idee, jaaa!

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And then it snowballed. From the 90s, Oktoberfest exponentially grew. Germans felt it was okay to take pride in their country again and they started attending from all over, and then people from every country around. The bigger it got, the more people it attracted, until it finally became the biggest festival in the world.

7. It’s the biggest festival in the world

Today, Oktoberfest sees over 7 million visitors, making it the clear winner in global festivals.

People drink nearly 7 billion liters of beer and 100,000 liters of wine—not sure why anyone is drinking wine there, but again, like I said, there’s something for everyone.

carnival games

Another few random facts: people eat nearly 150,000 pork sausages and 75,000 pork shanks, making it pigs’ least favorite holiday. There’s also 111,000 foiled theft attempts—I reckon plenty of thefts happen, since there are lots of drunk people and drunk people don’t pay attention to their stuff, especially noted since there were over 4500 lost items last year alone, including 480 cell phones, a Playboy magazine, and 2 wedding rings (I’m guessing all the drndles had something to do with that!).

#Munich #Bavaria #Nuremburg #festivals

The Castles of the US

There are more ways between two places than one route. And this is most certainly true in the South of the US, where vast stretches of highway connect state to state and city to city. The best option is like life down there, the slow option, passing by swampy forests, full of willows, cedar, and oak, where the Spanish moss reaches from tall branches down to the ground below. The air is thick and wet, old men watch your car pass from huge covered front porches.

We already took the fast highway route. I wanted a different route. I wanted the slow route.

Fort Morgan being invaded by Federalists

I’ve seen dozens and dozens of European castles, and only add to that number every time I leave Prague. So, I thought it was high time I saw an American castle, and by castle here I mean fortress.

Around Perdido Key, there are four old fortresses open for touring, Fort McRee (which you can’t go inside), Fort Pickens, Fort Morgan, and Fort Gaines.

Defending the Fort

These are quite different than the traditional medieval European castles one’s used to thinking about though, as they were built in quite a different age. As you might see in towns like Dubrovnik, the medieval days saw the walls on fortifications get higher and higher, with towers and keeps soaring into the sky. This was because the main siege weapons were catapults and trebuchets, which were more often than not, used to send rocks flying through the air over the walls and decimating the garrison from above. But with the advent of cannon warfare, and gunpowder stockpiles blowing up famous sites (see also: the Parthenon), fortifications began to change.

the second tier

Medieval castles became somewhat powerless when it came to cannons, so they transformed into beautiful, sprawling palaces, and fairy tale monuments, while a new sort of military fort emerged. The new kind would be lower to the ground, which made it harder to hit with cannons, using more earthworks to defend from attacks. With its more parallel position, it was then easier to send a barrage of powerful explosives towards any advancing army or navy. And instead of being in populated areas, they were more often than not placed away from them.

a profoundly useless cannon

These especially were the overlying ideas behind the development of the string of fortresses built along the US’s southern coast. The first series of fortifications were built in the area by the Spanish, who were later kicked out by American expansion—interestingly, in our War of 1812 against the British, we were only able to soundly defeat the Spanish, until after the war was over, when Andrew Jackson pommeled the British a bit too Johnny-come-lately over in New Orleans.

The Americans then set about building a better fort system, known as the “Third System”, which was defined by its low, protected masonry walls and two tiers of cannon. Most of these were completed just in time for the Civil War. Good for those entitled Southerner loafers who refused to pay their taxes and just milked the Union for their forts. Granted, these forts probably weren’t all that expensive, since the South benefited from slaves, and forts like Morgan were one-hundred percent built by those non-Union laborers.

near one of the 360 cannon placements

The Civil War

Here’s the thing though, many saw their only use during the Civil War. And a few in the South were never even held by the Confederates, but maintained Union alliance, like nearby Fort Pickens. The commanding officer of Fort Barrancas, Lt. Adam J Slemmer, refused to join with the Confederates, took his men to Fort Pickens, rebuilt it, and held up there until the Union could bring in reinforcements.

Fort Morgan, on the other hand, was in rebel traitor hands, where it served alongside Fort Gaines (on the other side of the ferry) as Mobile’s key protection agent against the Northern aggressors. After it was captured by the Union, it served the Union army for a short while until Lee’s surrender.

exploring the interior

The Decline of the Forts

It was reinforced a bit during the Spanish-American War, but didn’t really see any use, and after 1947 was abandoned altogether.

Now it’s a big pile of earth, mortar, and stone, with some plaques and cannon placements, though its main cannonades are long gone. Where it once was three stories tall with hundreds of cannons, it now just looks to be one story tall with only a couple fire breathers left.

It’s at the very tip of the Key towards Alabama, and made it on our route primarily because there’s a ferry terminal right next to it. And because castles. It can be reached on foot from the terminal.

View of some oil wells

The Ferry

From there, the only way to continue on to New Orleans is to go back or take the ferry. During the summer, the ferry runs every 45 minutes, and during the off-season, every hour and a half. It’s come as you go, meaning you can’t reserve tickets ahead of time, and passage is 18 dollars per car and 6 dollars per passenger or pedestrian.

he comes bearing presents

The route goes straight across Mobile Bay, which is spotted with dozens of huge oil platforms. The boat is chased by seagulls and sometimes dolphins, and the undersea life is full of sharks, so don’t fall in.

someone isn't as afraid as they should be...

#castles #touristicsites #Perdido #museums

A Beach for Everyone: Florida

For a beach lover, there are few places better in the world than Florida and South Alabama. Soft sandy beaches spread across nearly the entirely peninsula’s circumference, and extend outward through Alabama until Mobile, where the salt marches of the Mississippi Delta gradually wash away a solid outline of coast. There is a wide variety of beach for every sort of comber. There are party beaches, quiet beaches, family beaches, and if you look hard enough, I imagine you’d find some nude beaches somewhere around there. It’s a coastal heaven.

The beach on Perdido Key

We were taking my wife to her first trip to the great American South in order to meet my extended family. Most of them live in South Louisiana, except for my brother and his family, who live towards Florida. That’s why we decided to make the trip to this beach paradise. We found the Ocean Breeze condo complex on Perdido Key, just outside of Pensacola. This part of the stretch lies between the college party haven of Pensacola and the somewhat more family oriented party haven of Orange Beach in Alabama.

Perdido Key hotels and birds

Perdido Key is lightly developed, with only a line of condo complexes stretching along the beach line with only a light smattering of restaurants and bars. Because of this, the beaches are immaculately clean, it’s easy to score an apartment facing the ocean, and there’s a lot of space to spread out to build sandcastles and great pyramids wherever you’d like.

We were staying in Ocean Breeze, a timeshare condo that most owners rent out to visitor’s year round, with many listed on VRBO, which is kind of like AirBnB. This part of the beach is undoubtedly the quietest and cheapest part, making it just perfect for family vacations and gatherings, such as what we had.

View from the room

It was an odd sort of meeting. I hadn’t seen my brother and his wife since before I had left to Peace Corps, and I had never met my niece. This was the first time for that. And the first time for my wife to meet any of them. I had had a falling out with them years before, when I was on my own in Tbilisi in a period of darkness, near revolution, and a raging habit of drinking liters and liters of non-potable Georgian beer—truly terrible swill. But I came out stronger for it all, with a beautiful wife, beautiful life, and mad skills at the accordion, which will undoubtedly take me super far in life, as we all know accordions are all the rage these days. Or at least they should be.

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The reunion went well, though most of that afternoon my wife and I spent recovering from the fierce jet lag that’s always carried across trans-Atlantic flights. That evening we finally descended to the beach.

That night like every night people were out walking around, their phone lights waving like torches, searching the sands for crabs. All we ever saw were the smallest sort scurrying across the granular earthen powder.

leftover crab

Then we came to a square trench surrounding a huge pile of sand. There was shouting and a flashing military grade torch from a different balcony in our complex. He seemed to be signaling something.

“He wants us away from his sand pile,” my mother pointed out.

“Impossible, that’s just crazy,” I said. But it seemed my mother was right. Day in and out through the week, this guy was on watch, guarding it as though he were protecting buried treasure. During the day he was out with trench shovels, digging down and down, so his sand pile would grow higher and higher. Eventually we saw what he was up to. He was trying to alert the world of the Illuminati takeover by building a giant sand pyramid and taking pictures in front of it to post on Instagram. To each his own.

a pyramid of cray

The next day we woke up to rain. My wife worried that maybe the whole trip would be rain, that this was a disaster, there would be no sunbathing. But the weather there is a fickle beast, willing to rage and be pacified at a moments notice. The rain soon disappeared and the sun came out to ease us onward for the rest of the week.

a meteorological temper tantrum

Things to do…

Outside of slamming up against the incoming waves until your brain is knocked around like mush, finding the occasional jellyfish to sting you and test your manhood, or killing people over trespassing on your sand-pyramid building site, there are other things to do in the neighborhood, but you absolutely need a car to vacation here.

parasailing in the distance

Firstly, there’s the usual beach activities, run by occasional huts up and down the beach, each with their own parking lot and signs. You can easily rent jet skis, go parasailing, or ride on a giant, inflatable banana. There are fishing tours available too, where you can even get paid if you catch a large enough edible fish on the trip.

a Ferris wheel at the Wharf

Or you can do what we did. Make your way over to the Wharf at Orange Beach for some laser tag. There they also have a ropes course and a Ferris wheel, or you can walk up and down and gawk at all the huge yachts you could never afford. There’s also laser tag, mini-golf and an (replica) erupting volcano at Adventure Island. At night you can catch live music at the Hangout, Flora-bama, or the Sports Bar, though we didn’t take part as we were too tired from the beating sun and the laser tag. And plus I don’t really like drinking at places I can’t walk or take public transit to, a real downer thing in this part, especially with the presence of police cruisers waiting outside the parking lots of every bar there is. One or two buses going up and down the Florabama stretch every thirty minutes or so would do a lot to liven up the tourism activities (I understand this is a thing over at Pensacola Beach).

boats I will never afford

Where to eat?

The place we found to frequent was the Shrimp Basket, a chain that started out of Gulf Shores, Alabama and spread across the southern coastal states. Standard fried baskets of fish were the name of the game there.

A couple of friends I had made from way back when, when my parents and I went on a cruise in Turkey, happened to be living in Pensacola at the time and introduced us to by far the best restaurant where we had eaten this whole portion of the trip. The Sunset Grille is tucked away in Perdido Bay, at a small harbor near the bridge from the key to the mainland. As its name suggests, it’s definitely one of the best places to catch the sunset, with a small dock giving you a view of a palm tree covered island nearby.

Why to go?

The best reason to go for anyone foreign to the Gulf Shores to Pensacola area, rather than the more famous spots in the US, is to do what we did, make it a part of a New Orleans trip. It’s probably not a worthwhile place to go on its own, but combined with a great tour of the South it’s an absolutely perfect and engaging place for anybody. It’s about a 3 hour drive from New Orleans, but you’d have to rent a car to make your trip the most worthwhile. More on that next week.

#beach #traveltips #hotels #restaurants #bars