Oktoberfest!

A couple of years ago, John and I took a trip to Stuttgart and Munich, Germany for their spring beer festivals.  Ever since, we’ve dreamed of going to Oktoberfest.  Now, that dream has become a reality, and what a whirlwind day it was!

Here on base we have something called the Information, Tickets, & Travel office, called ITT for short.  Every year ITT offers express trips to Munich each of the 3 weekends of Oktoberfest.  For a very reasonable fee, they provide buses that take us from Aviano to the fairgrounds in Munich for one very long day trip.

John and I woke up around 1:00 am on Saturday, October 6 to catch the 1:45 bus to Munich.  We might have slightly over prepped a little with plenty of pillows and blankets to get the best sleep possible on the bus.  We drove through the night and stopped around 7 am for breakfast.  I have no idea where we were, somewhere near the Austria/Germany line, but the views we gorgeous!

A couple more hours on the bus, and we were there!  At the entrance to the grounds stands the Bavaria Statue with a large grassy hill on either side.  By the end of the day, this hill would be filled with people trying, some not so successfully, to sleep off the day’s beer.

  We walked through the fairgrounds, passing the beer tents, pretzel venders, and amusement rides.

It was only 9:30 in the morning, but the fairgrounds were filling up FAST!  All 6 of the Munich breweries are represented at Oktoberfest and each brewery has their own tent.  We were determined to hit the Hofbrauhaus tent.

See all those people?!?!  This was still only about 9:30-10:00 in the morning!  By the end of the day, this place was PACKED. 

Once we made it to the Hofbrauhaus tent, we had to get in line.  Little did we know this was going to be a theme for the day Even still, we were pretty excited to be there, hunting down beer at 10 am.  Hey, it’s 5:00 somewhere, right?  Well,at Oktoberfest, it always 5:00.

Unfortunately, wee never made it inside the tent.  After about 30 minutes, one of the security guards came to the head of line and announce that the tent would be closed for the next 3 hours!  Boo.  The crowd was growing by leaps and bounds, and neither of us enjoy being bumped into at every turn, so wee decided to ditch the fairgrounds and head into the center of Munich.  We might not be able to get into the HB tent, but we weren’t going to let that get in our way to fun.  We decided we’d to the actual Hofbrauhaus downtown. 

We took the U-bahn from the fairgrounds to Marienplatz in the heart of the pedestrian area of Munich.  We got there in time to see the puppets in the clocktower of the new town hall.

Maybe we were naive, but we were surprised to see how packed Munich was even outside of the fairgrounds.  It was wonderful.  Oktoberfest is celebrated all over the city.  The building were festively adorned with fall flowers and city flags. 

After walking around and enjoying Munich for a bit, we finally made our way to the Hofbrauhaus downtown.  As soon as we got there, we were immediately glad we made the decision to leave the fairground and head into town.  It was definitely still packed inside, but the wait to get in was only a few minutes long, and since there were only 2 of us, it was easy to find a seat.

We ended up sitting in the upstairs hall which was a real treat for John.  John loves Germany history, especially surrounding the two world wars, and the Hofbrauhaus is chock full of history, especially the large festival hall on the 3rd floor.  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

In 1919, the Munich Communist government set up headquarters in the famous beer hall, and in 1920 Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists held their first meeting in the Festsaal, the Festival Room, on the third floor.

The hall is beautiful, and festive, and so. much. fun!  By this time, not only were we craving some serious beer, but we were also getting really hungry.  Good thing we were in the right place.  We grabbed a couple of English menus and got to work figuring out what we were having. 

We each ordered our liter of beer.  John had his favorite, the Hofbrau Dunkel, and I decided to try the Hofbrau Oktoberfestbier.

 

We decided to each pick something off the menu for lunch and share the 2 dishes.  John ordered a pork dish with gravy and a potato dumpling, while I ordered the Munich brats and sauerkraut.  Both were very tasty!

And just in case you were wondering what it’s like to put a liter of beer up to your face, well here you go.

After lunch, we decided to pick up some souvenirs and head back to the fairgrounds.   By far, one of my favorite things about Oktoberfest was the clothing!  Young and old, it didn’t matter, everyone was dressed the part.  The men wore their lederhosen and the women their dirndls. 

Remember the Bavarian Statue I mentioned earlier?  Remember the hill?  Well, by mid afternoon, things were looking a bit different.

 

John and I were so tired by this point, so we decided to find us a spot on the hill.  Look at all the people here!

Our bus picked us up around 9:30 and by 4am we were back home, where our bed was calling our names. We have black out shades on our house, so we slept until 11am without even knowing the sun had come up. Delightful.

We had a lot of fun on our day trip to Oktoberfest, and are so glad we went. Because it was so crowded, we think if we have the opportunity to go next year, that we’d like to go during the week and stay a couple of nights in town. We also learned that in order to get in one of the beer tents or beer gardens not only do you need to get there early, but you need to get in line immediately. If you wait until later, you’ll never get it. We were disappointed that we didn’t get into a tent, but that just gives us something to look forward to for the next time. We certainly wouldn’t change how we spent the day.

Two Months

It’s hard to believe 2 months have passed since we moved from Charleston to Aviano.  So much has happened since arriving in Italy.  It’s definitely been an adventure!

When we arrived, our car was here waiting for us.  It took us a few days to be able to pick it up; we had to attend a vehicle safety briefing, apply for our AFI (Allied Forces Italy) drivers license, and finalize our vehicle registration.  And nothing around here is done quickly, or in a day.  Thankfully, by Monday, we had our car. 

Our excitement however was short lived, and we learned firsthand, how difficult it is when your American spec car breaks down around here.  3 days after picking up Rolla, her starter died.  We had someone call the local Toyota dealer about getting the part.  With import fees and what I’m certain is what I call the “American tax” the cost would have been around 700 Euros which is equivalent to about $900.  JUST. FOR. THE. STARTER.  No dice. 

We decided to save $800 and just order it ourselves.  That was definitely our first lesson in how hard some things can be around here.  We couldn’t believe how much more expensive it would have been to order the part locally.

We were thankful that it was a simple, easy fix and that nothing major was wrong with Rolla.  We since learned that A LOT of people have trouble with their cars right after they come off the boat, so what we experienced was just par for the course!

Not all of our excitement has been bad.  We’ve had some fun taking day trips and exploring our new home.

Shortly after we arrived, some new friends invited us to visit Lake Barcis with them.  Lake Barcis is nestled in the middle of the mountains about 30 minutes away from the base. The water is gorgeous turquoise blue color, and there is a nice path around the lake with picnic tables and wonderful views!

The little town around the lake is so cute.  It was something out of a storybook.  I have a feeling that we are going to see a lot of little storybook towns in the next 3 years!

At the end of September, we went to the Italian/American Friendship Festival in Maniago.  Maniago is one of the many small towns near the base where Americans stationed at Aviano Air Base live.  Unfortunately, you can’t see it in the picture below, but Italian and American fire fighters were standing underneath the flags during a 9/11 tribute.

There were tents with free food and wine, and Italian and American flags hung from the windows and balconies surrounding the square.

  It’s been an interesting ride so far.  We’ve definitely had our share of ups and downs, but I would mostly say ups.  We’ve had fun trying new dishes, and have already established our favorite restaurants.  We’ve tried to branch out from the norm and try some unusual (for us) stuff on our pizza like this potato and salami pizza.

Truth?  It was TASTY!  I was certainly skeptical, but John insisted that his airmen kept talking about how good it was.  Another surprising hit was a local appetizer, prosciutto and melon.  Savory and sweet, this dish is SO good!

  I promise, these pictures do not lie.  All we do is eat!  Ha ha!  We have a cafe within walking distance to our house, and it has become our Sunday afternoon routine to walk down there with the dogs for gelato.  I love how dog friendly Italy is!  The dogs certainly love the outing, especially since I often break apart and share my cone with them!

We still have so much to learn and experience, and our Italian consists mostly of “Ciao!” and hand gestures, but we are thankful for this adventure and the challenges it brings!