My first Wiesn

Paul H has been living in Munich for nearly six years now, so a visit to the Oktoberfest (Munich beer festival or more locall Wiesn) was long overdue. The festival has been going since 1810, originally held to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Still, that seems to barely matter these days, as it is an excuse for a 2-week plus drinkfest, which can attract up to 6 million people each year. Given that Paul is a local, he took us to one of the smaller (but still huge) tents that is more dominated by Germans, rather that aussies and/or brits beating each other up. A table is a must if you are going to spend all day there and we were queueing from 7.20, for the opening of the doors at 9. As if that was bad enough, the stampede to get a table was something else and pretty dangerous at times. Paul is an old hand, so he ran it, found a table, stood on it and made sure no-one else got within 6 feet of it. Meanwhile, Andy and myself spotted him and laid claim also. After that, it was a case of settling into paced drinking. The music started around 10.30 and from there on it, it was pretty full on, with much singing (German and some English) and standing on the benches. Still, it's nothing like an English pub doing something similar. There are plenty of young ladies there nearly all dressed in dirndl dresses... My friend Andy was a bit trigger happy with the camera on this front (very edited pics here). Everyone was also very friendly, both guys and girls and were nearly all there for the occasion and fun of it, rather that just to get smashed. We left around 5pm, went on a few fairground rides and were home at a reasonable time in the evening. We had the sense to go for a walk in the Bavarian countryside the next day as well. Germany is an often mis-understood nation and I was having a lengthy chat about this with one of the guys on our table. As with anything, you just have to go and experience it for youself, preferably with someone thatlives there. This weekend, together with all my other visits, just confirmed my positive impressions of the place and the people... great fun.