Day 18 - The Bill Gates of Rothenburg

Morning Team (at least for me),

After our tour of King Leopolds' Castles, we headed north in our C-Max to a little town about half way between Munich and Frankfurt by the name of Rothenburg.  Now back in the day (Middle Ages) this place was booming.  Textiles and fertile farming land actually made this the 7th largest city in the Holy Roman Empire.  It was even bigger than London at the time.

Much like Bruges, however, it had a couple of bad breaks, some industries came and went, and it stagnated for a couple hundred years.  This blows for the people living in those times, but with the onset of the tourism business, it set up a cornucopia (advanced word of the day) of business opportunities to cash in on suckers like me who want to go see something "authentic".

Scott and I got into town in the evening because there was supposed to be this really cool tour around 8PM by a local called "The Nightwatchman's Tour".  Next time you're in Rothenburg, check it out.  It's one hour and completely worth the price of admission.

So here's a couple of shots of my new hero.    His name is Hans and he's from Rothenburg.  For the last 18 years this guy shows up in the middle of town around 8PM wearing this get up and charges somewhere between 50-100 people about 5 euro a pop to go walk around and tell you a little about the history of the town.  He's also one of the driest wits I've ever heard and  he got no less than 10 laughs from the entire crowd.  He's like a German version of Monty Python but without having to endure 20 minutes of stupidity before getting to the good stuff.

                                    

Oh yeah, so why is he my hero.  Notice there is no one else in this picture.  No staff, no waiver forms citing he's not responsible if his axe thingy there hits you in the face.  His overhead is that costume and whatever product is needed to get his hair looking like that.  He just shows up at 8, does his spiel, collects your money (not including tips) in cash, and is at the pub by 9:15.  This dude makes more money in euros for one hour's worth of work than I do in dollars putting in a full day. He's even got a DVD if your interested.    

Scott and I crashed at this cheap hotel/bed and breakfast place and then got up early the next morning and did a walk around the city wall.  You can cover the entire perimeter in about an hour and it is supposed to be one of the highlights of visiting.

Here's a shot outside the city.  The town is surrounded by a steep hill on three sides so attacking the city was very difficult.  In fact it was only taken once in 700-800 years.  During the 30 Years War a heavy rainstorm happened along and one of the enemy armies (going somewhere else) got stuck in the mud and asked to be sheltered.  Rothenburg gave them the German Finger so they besieged the town.

Well like I said, it is a very difficult place to take due to it's impressive wall and cliff like perch.  Rothenburg was doing quite well until the guy in charge of the gun powder room decided it would be a good idea to take a torch in there one night (because it was dark of course) to check things out.  Well it got really bright in a hurry and simultaneously that section of the wall disappeared.  So after that the army just waltzed in and took over, making sure they high-fived whatever remnants of the torch guy was left.


You'd think there would be some kind of entrance exam to get the gun powder room watcher job.

Question 1)  While none are a good idea, which should you never ever do in the gun powder room?
a) Use the powder kegs as you own personal toilet
b) Play your lute for long periods of time
c) Light a fire around the highly highly combustable contents that we store there
d) Wear a jester suit

I would think that really needed to be the only question but perhaps it's more complicated.

Here's a shot to show you what the town looks like.  For my money this is more medieval looking (whatever that means) than Bruges but it doesn't have the canals.

This is a shot of the wall from inside the town.  As you can see, you can actually walk on the wall.  Good story here. During WWII when the Allies where finishing off the Nazi's one of the last German Armies came to Rothenburg.  Well we found out about it and started to bomb the city, damaging a bit of the wall here.

We were about to go ahead and just wipe this place off the map when some Under Secretary of State for the US heard about the plan.  Turns out, his Mom had visited here many years before and loved it.  When he was growing up he would even eat dinner looking at a picture of Rothenburg hanging in their dining room.  Well he called the commanding general, and said that he thought Rothenburg was too important a historical city to destroy, so if the Nazi army would surrender we would spare the town.  The Germans were ordered not to surrender, but the commanding officer for them was out of town for some reason, so one of the local citizen/soldiers came out and said, "No problem, it's all yours".  And just like that,  the town was saved.

Here's another shot of some of the architecture.

This is the main square and the city hall of the town.

This is at St. Jakob's church.  This is considered one of the most remarkable wood carvings from the Middle Ages.  If you get up closer on it, the detail is amazing.  How people do this stuff is beyond me, and with wood it seems even more impressive.  You screw up, and you have to start all over.  I struggle to write my name correctly and this guy does a 10 foot wide masterpiece that's nearly flawless.




Our next stop was to the Medieval Punishment Museum where you get to see all of the "civilized" ways people used to pay for their sins.

Is this a new way to play washers?  Perhaps a really big key?  Maybe a new form of hopscotch? . . .

No silly.  Its a Double Neck Violin.  Gents, are your lady friends having a bit of a tiff and need to be put back in line?  Well pop 'em in here for a couple of hours and voila!  They're now the best of friends.

Now girls, don't shoot the messenger.  I'm just reporting the facts (see picture).  This isn't nearly as bad as the Bavarian dresses at Oktoberfest.  See, you can't even see their ankles.

Alright ladies and gentleman, step right up and pick your favorite way to leave the world.  Will it be being boiled alive?  Or maybe driving a stake through your heart.  Or even better, taking a 150 lb wagon wheel and throwing it on top of you repeatedly until you expire.  Of course, we'll follow that up by weaving your broken body between the spokes just for good measure.  You get full service here and all for free.

It's times like these that make me wish I was back in the Good 'Ol Days.



The last big thing we did was head over to see Europe's version of the North Pole.  From the outside this building looked like any other one.  But then we walked in and saw this:

And you though Macy's gets the Christmas stuff out too early.  There are 3 floors of nothing but Christmas decorations here.



Rothenburg was a quick trip, but we got a good 3/4 or a day in and I think we both agreed it was worth the effort.  After that we headed back to Munich to drop off the car and catch a train to the Czech Republic.  Prague is the next stop. . .

Day 17 - The Magic Kingdom For a Tenth of the Price

Hi Team,

The perfect follow up of our tour of an infamous WWII sight was to go to the place "Where dreams come true".  No, we aren't talking about Disneyland people.  We're talking about King Ludwig II of Bavaria's Fairy Tale Castles right outside of Fussen, Germany.  These castles, specifically the Neuschwanstein Castle that Ludwig II had built for himself in the late 1800's were the inspiration for the Magic Kindgom Castles at some of the Disneyland Theme Parks.

So back then, when you won the national horseshoeing competition, or made it to your 50th birthday or something like that, you wouldn't respond to some journalist with a "I'm going to Disney World!!".  You'd say the much more poetic, "Ich werde bis zum Schloss Neuschwanstein!!". . . and then you'd have to wait half an hour for the picture from the camera box to take.

But before we can see the castles, we had to get there first.  Scott and I had left the Eagle's Nest and headed for Innsbruck, Austria, where we crashed for the night.  Innsbruck is a beautiful mountain town (we just drove through it so no pretty pictures. . sorry) that hosted both the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics.  We got up early in the morning and headed for our two hour drive to the Castles.  Now I know I was bagging on the Austrians last go round, but one thing both the Germans and Austrians have is this little thing called the Autobahn.  Scott and I have decided we like the Autobahn a lot.

Here's a shot of our speedometer.  Our little Ford C-Max may not be able accelerate more than me when I run a 40 yard dash, but once she gets moving, she can go.  As an added bonus, at these speeds, you can't even hear the body work shimmying off the cars due to all of the rattling.

Now don't freak out, that is in in km/hr and not MPH, but that still is 100 MPH.  This was not irresponsible driving either.  We were being left behind like we weren't even moving by a lot of cars.  This was not our cruising speed (Scott and I both just got up to this to say we did) but 130-140 km/hr is more than normal.

When we started our drive we only had 100 km or so to make it to the castles, so if we were going 130 km/hr we were a bit confused as to why the nav system had us down for 2 hrs.  Then we found out.  This was our view for about 90 minutes of the drive.  We went straight up two mountains.  No more 160 for the C-Max.  More like just 60.





At long last we reached our destination in the very southern most part of German on the western side of the country.  We had excellent weather for the day and were looking forward to seeing if these castles could live up to the hype, as the have apparently assumed the mantle of the Muhammad Ali of Fairy Tale Land.

The first thing we came to was this.  This is the Alpsee Lake.  As you can see it is quite a bit different than Sam Rayburn back home with the mountains, and the reflective surface, and the lack of drunk people tearing through on a jet ski.

There are two of these castles on this site.  This is the older one and it's called Hohenschwangau Castle.  This is the ugly sister of the two and it was built by Ludwig's Pop, Maximilllian II.  I realize everyone obviously knows what this name means, but just for giggles I'll give you the translation: Castle of the High Swan County.  See, isn't German fun.  You don't even have to put spaces into full sentences.  Makes typing much faster.

This castle is a bit smaller but I think I liked it more.  It felt more homey and a lot of the bedrooms look like what you'd want to have in your kid's room when they are small.  Unfortunately, the fine people in charge of this castle felt, in their infinite wisdom, that it was better to have all of us pay to go in but not be able to take out evidence that we were there.  So no pictures.  But fear not, dear readers, for I circumvented the rules for the next one.  See what I do for you guys?

After finishing the tour of the first smaller castle, we had to get to the second one, which is a 25 minute hike up a mountain.  We saw this view a lot over the last 24 hours.  The consensus was that mountains are pretty, but only from afar.

Finally we made it to where we were going.  This is Schloss Neuschwanstein, the apple of Bavaria's proverbial eye.  Ludwig II grew up in his Dad's castle, so in order to one up him, he built his own twice as big, much higher on the mountain range, half a mile away so everyone at the old castle could see it, and not yellow.

This is an ok view but the shots coming up are from even higher up the mountain (so more climbing/yodeling for us).

Here's the shot of the first castle from our highest perch, The Mary Bridge, which as I said, was above both castles.  As you can see, it was a rough life these Bavarian Kings had.  This castle is 600-700 years old actually but during the Napoleonic Wars, the French laid waste to it.  Maximillian saw this as his own personal "Flip this House" project and came out ahead several billion dollars after an investment of less than $1500 for supplies and an antique toilet basin he picked up at a garage sale.

Here's a shot of the Mary Bridge.  The next several shots are taken from the bridge.

And here's the Neuschwanstein Castle (which means New Swan Stone Place) in all it's glory.  We've had a bit of bad luck the last week with famous landmarks.  Most of them are under some type of maintenance and this one was no different.  This is the far away shot which keeps you from seeing it too much.  I can tell you that the scaffolding on the building was the only disappointment of the entire day.  No joke, perhaps the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life.  Without question, a storybook castle on a storybook day.

Here's a shot of Scott and I on the Mary Bridge.  Here we can clearly see why I should actually use the undershirt as an undershirt and not the main upper body garment.  It's either a little cold or I'm very excited to be here.

This is the front entrance to the castle.  Looks just like the lego set I had as a kid.

Now as I said, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but I thought that was simply unacceptable, so I pulled out my iPhone and took a few shots.  I had to discreetly take them from my hip to avoid the guide seeing me, so I wasn't exactly aiming but merely pushing the button hoping something stuck.

This is the Throne Room of the castle.  It is done up in Byzantine style (Eastern Europe), and that is a picture of Christ and below him six patron saints of Europe.  There never was a throne put in because Ludwig II died at 41 in the 1880's.  Only one third of the rooms in the castle are completed because construction stopped after his death.  Whereas the other castle was homey, this one was designed strictly to impress.  Everything was intended to be done on a grand scale. . .and they succeeded.

This is the reading lamp in his bedroom.  Like I always say, why stop at one candle when you can have 163?  What's sad is this guy only lived here for 6 months before kicking the bucket.

Here's a shot of a painting in the castle.  Now picture this all over the walls of your room.  And I don't mean hanging pictures.  I mean actually painted onto your wall.  Most of the paintings were inspired by the famous German composer, Richard Wagner's. operas  Both castles had this stuff covering every room.

This is such and awesome place I had to show you a picture of the castle in it's pristine state, even though it's not mine.  This looks like it was built a long time ago, but remember that it just turned 120 or so not too long ago.  This is done in the Neo-Romantic style which was brought about to recall the heroic and idyllic days of the past.  At the end of the day, Scott and I both agreed that the castles had lived up to expectations and more.  Great day all around.




Before I let you go though, you're lucky enough to be reading the post containing Classic Kenny Moment #3.  So gather around kids, it's story time:

Scott's favorite time of year is Christmas.  And I don't mean he likes to watch Frosty on TV and drink a lot of eggnog.  I mean when he was 3 he essentially Mr. Miyagi'd all of us other kids to ensure that he had the lifetime title of Santa Claus when presents were handed out  It's what he does, and it's been like that ever since.

Well, when he travels, he likes to buy Christmas ornaments for the 4 or 5 Christmas trees he puts up in his house every year, and he found a perfect little one of the castle in the souvenir shop on site.  Now we are doing a lot of traveling and as you know most ornaments are not made of cast iron, so there was a considerable amount of concern as to whether the ornament he purchased would make the entire trip in one piece.

Being the great older brother that I am, and knowing how important these things are to Scott, I decided to test the tensile strength of said ornament.  The following conversation ensued:

Scott:  Hey look at this one.
Kenny:  Cool.  What's it made of?
Scott:  Wood.
Kenny:  Is it sturdy (Kenny grasps ornament with pointer and thumb and pushes fingers in opposite directions to test it's worthiness)?

SNAP!!

German dude who runs souvenir stand:  Guttentag.  That will be 3 Euro's please.

How it is possible that after 20 some years living under the same roof that this guy and I have failed Brotherly Communication 101 is beyond me, but I've now learned the when he says the word "Wood" what he really means is "Communion Wafer".

Here's the shot of my new Christmas ornament after I completed my own artistic adjustments.  Hard to see, but this thing should be about twice as high as it is right now.

Day 16 - Good Times with the Austrians

Hey Team,

Well today, Scott and I shook the dust of Munich off our sandals and hit the open road.  Our goal today was to get to the Eagle's Nest, located in the Obersalzburg in the lower southeast corner of Germany, which is basically right on the Austrian/Germany border.  The Eagle's Nest was this ridiculously posh "home away from home" for Adolf Hitler that was built during the War.

When he was younger, although he was born in Austria (keep this in mind for later) he considered this Alpine valley to be home. So as a 50th birthday present, the Nazi leadership (specifically Hermann Borman, his Secretary), thought it would be nice to build this $150 million dollar (in today's dollars) show place for him to wow dignitaries and such with.

We mixed things up a bit and decided to rent a car rather than take a train.  Now this is not the first time I've ever rented a car obviously, but it is the first time I've rented a car in Europe.  And while the continental Europeans aren't as messed up as the Brits (thankfully the car is driven on the same side of the road as we do), they still have a lot of messed up rules and signs.  Throw in that whole we don't speak English thing as an added bonus and you could have a problem on your hands real quick if you're not careful.  But nevertheless, being the hardheaded children of equally hardheaded parents (love ya Mom and Pop) we were undeterred and pushed forward.

First things first, we had to rent the car.  Behold our chariot:

Ah, the world renowned Ford C-Max.  As you can tell, Scott and I spared no expense so as to fully enjoy our driving experience on the German Autobahn.

I've seen mopeds accelerate better actually but it got us from Point A to B in one piece so I won't complain too much.

Now at this point, I'm afraid that I have a bit of a confession to make.  I've developed a bit of thing for someone I met here on this portion of the trip.  We actually met in the car garage funny enough.  Totally random and unexpected, but I can honestly say, she has definitely changed my life (and Scott's as well) for the better.  Before we crossed paths, I didn't know how lost I really was, but now, I can tell you unequivocally that she is the shining light that guides me.  I don't know how I would have made it without her.  Here's a picture:

When you quickly realize you don't have the first idea of how to get out of the rental car garage, let alone the second biggest city in Germany, there has never been a sweeter voice sung.  We got this added on to the rental unexpectedly and I can say with absolute certainty that without this beautiful invention, we would still be circling the Hauptbahnhof Train Station.





After a couple of tense moments avoiding bikers and driving in a lane that is usually reserved for people going the opposite direction that we are, we made our way out of Munich.  It's about a 2 hour drive to the Eagle's Nest tour we were going to take so we decided to kill some time by stopping in Salzburg, Austria.  This is close to where the Sound of Music takes place and it is also the birthplace of Amadeus Mozart, the famous composer.  We arrived at our destination, but unfortunately, we didn't realize that Salzburg sucks.  Here's the best thing I can show you about the city from our perspective.

This was taken much later in the day when we were 40 miles away from this place.  Actually, it might be a beautiful town, but it was such an unfriendly place for a car (no signs for landmarks, no parking, and really no driving lanes) that we never even got to set foot of the ground.  Wasting the morning driving there would have been bad enough, but as I said, we had to go to Austria to get there.  That's when the fun began. . .





So in Europe as is becoming the norm in the States, you have to pay a toll to ride the good highways.  Every country has a different way of doing this.  As we have learned since, Italy has toll stations like we do, Germany actually allows you to drive for free, and Austria. . .well Austria expects you to pick up a toll sticker on the border from a gas station.

Scott and I knew there were tolls in Austria, but where unaware of the method of collecting payment.  We had a ton of coins in the car but no sticker.  Apparently there were signs for this but they were all in German so we didn't exactly see them.  So, we rolled into Austria to go see Salzburg, and then on the way out back to Germany a very nice man with a little flag saw our car and waved us over to the side of the road.

In better English than I have ever spoken he said in a very friendly tone that we needed a toll sticker to drive in Austria, which costs 7.70 euro for 10 days.  Since we didn't have one, he had no choice but to fine us 120 euro for the infraction (he was very sorry about this).  Instead of handing over a ticket, he politely told us that they would either take cash or credit card, at which point I was directed to another nice man with a credit card machine all ready to relieve me of about $180 US .

Now, I'm a big enough boy to admit that we should have had the tags and should have know before hand what to do.  But the fact that the two cops conducting the sweeps probably speak better English than German and the fact that they had a credit card machine ready to take care of the fine indicates to me that this is specifically designed to nail tourists who don't know any better.  I knew they had us dead to rights so I didn't really say a whole lot, but that didn't prevent the Italian guy who also got dinged from going into a 5 minute dance on the side of the road, which, while not worth the price of admission, was somewhat entertaining.

Needless to say, my opinion of the Austrian government, charging tourists, who are already pouring in cash like it's nobodies business into their economy, 16 times the amount of a stupid toll tag, has gone down the poop shoot.  Arnold, I'm very disappointed.  "I will 'not' be back" on my next European trip.

Anyway, after a fair amount of talking to ourselves and letting the steering wheel know what we thought of the situation, we went on our way.  The scenery in Bavaria was beautiful by the way.  Here's some shots from our time on the road:

This was taken during a much happier time on the trip for Scott and I.  We had made it out of Munich in one piece and still thought of Austria as a good place with good people.  Little did we know, two short hours later all of our illusions would be shattered into a million pieces, never to be put together again.  Oh to be back at the time of this picture, before our innocence was lost. . .

We saw a lot of these onion domed churches on our drive.  It looked more like an Eastern Orthodox type top but most of these are Protestant or Catholic.  I've tried finding some info on why they are prominent in this region but have whiffed so far. Really pretty though.

The German Alps dotted all of our drive.  Reminded me of how I feel every time I go to Conroe to see my folks.

More pictures of our drive.









So around lunchtime we made our way to the little German town of Berchtesgarden.  This is at the bottom of the region called the Obersalzburg, which is the mountain area where the Eagle's Nest is.  We planned on going on a guided tour up to the top (around 6,000 feet elevation) where the actual building was.  Our guide was a man around 50 from Northern Ireland who had written a book on the Eagle's Nest.  He was the most thorough and knowledgeable guide either of us had ever had.  He knew everything about what was going on.  Well worth the money we forked over.

The first thing we did was go to the base of the mountain to look at a series of tunnels that the Nazi had incorporated into the mountain.  There are over 4 km of tunnels underground.  Turns out there was an entire Nazi compound surrounding this entire area, including the homes of many top ranking Germans.  This area essentially was Berlin #2 in WWII.  Here's a shot of the tunnel.

These 5 feet thick reinforced concrete walls ran up and down the mountain.  They were heated and ventilated air in and out to the surface.  No known work was conducted down here, but storage and supplies where enough to last for 6 months.  These were fallout shelters essentially.  This area was heavily bombed at the end of WWII and many people stayed down here during that time.  None were killed.










After that we took specialized buses up to the Eagle's Nest.

Here are a shot of the German Alps.  A little hazy but still just amazing views.

Here's the entrance to the building.  If you look at the top of the picture you will see the Eagle's Nest.  You had to take an elevator to get to the building.

Right outside the Eagle's Nest.  I just thought this looked cool.  Nothing significant here.

Shot of me and the Bro.  You could do a bit of hiking around the area, which we did. . . for a good 5 minutes.  Turns out the Homann's boys might need to be taking pictures of the inside of the European equivalent of 24 Hour Fitness before the trip is over.

Here's a shot of the outside of the Eagle's Nest.  For $150 million, I was expecting something a bit bigger, but considering the premium materials used (get into that in a second), plus the effort required to build and construct all the way up a pristine mountain range, I could see it being what it was.

This was the inside of one of the rooms.  If you'll notice the wood paneling mirror itself.  They take these huge pines and split them giving this appearance.  Want to decorate your house?  No problem.  That'll be $1500/square meter.

Fact about the building:  There were no bedrooms.  No one slept here for the night.  It was mainly used to entertain guests during the day.  Hitler himself only used it about 20 or so times.  And you thought paying a MLB pitcher $20 million for 30 starts was exorbitant.

Here's a shot of the inside of the elevator leading from the tunnel up to the Eagle's Nest.  The whole thing was reflective and made of brass.  This was taken by me shooting the reflection.  Scott was super excited about this one making the blog.

Last shot.  This is the tunnel leading to the elevator.  It is built out of unpolished marble.  The tunnel is big enough to hold a large car and it's over 100 meters long.  To make up for our poor effort on the mountain range, Scott and I had to do gassers in the tunnel as punishment.

While obviously a notorious place due to its inhabitants, the views on the mountain were amazing and the engineering required to construct and maintain the entire mountain base was impressive.  Fortunately, the only people making use of it today are tourists, tour guides, the Germans, and most importantly, not the Austrian Government.  Despite the couple of setbacks, I think we both agreed that it was a good day and worth the headaches.  Tomorrow Scott and I go to the inspiration for the Magic Kingdom. . .

Day 14 and 15 - The Homann Boys and Oktoberfest: Oh Lord Help Us All

Well, today's the day my brother, Scott, joins the party.  I took a night train into Munich from Berlin and he flew in from Houston and rolled into town around 3 pm on Saturday.  The fact he's here is big news for me, but even more significant (obviously), is that I have my very own bathroom for two whole days (It's the little things people)!!!  Only kidding of course.  We haven't had a Bro's trip in a while, so this should be a great time as he will be in for the whole week.

Anyway, I checked into our hotel, which is in the Olympic Village near where the 1972 Summer Olympics were held, and then went into the city center to people watch and see some sights.  Here's a few shot's of the Marienplatz, which is their historic square.

No Christmas Lights (points off for that), but it turns out that Munich went and got themselves a courthouse too (this is for my Mom's side of the family).  This is the Neues Rathous (which mean New Town Hall in German). The tower here is 260 ft tall.

Here's a shot from the other side of this beautiful building.









As you know from the last post, it's Oktoberfest time here in Munich.  Oktoberfest is the largest fair in the world.  Some 6 million plus attend the event every year and they eat over half a million chickens, a quarter million pork sausages, and drink the equivalent of 3.3 million six packs of beer over the course of the 3 week festival.  The first one took place in 1810 for the marriage of King Ludwig I and Queen Therese.  To put it in Scott's words, "This is the Texas State Fair on steroids, HGH, and The Clear all combined into one fat horse pill."

I've decided to do this post a little differently.  We did a bit more here in Munich than Oktoberfest, but I'm going to devote this update completely to that event.  The other main activity was going to Dachau, which is one of the most notorious concentration camps from WWII. Since we are looking at two complete opposites in regards to mood (festive vs somber reflection), and I'm also going to Auschwitz next week, I'll simply include the Dachau pictures in with that post.  Since I think it's important to show the stuff we saw at the camps, we'll simply combine the visits into one. No need being a Debbie Downer on two different posts.

Now before we move onto the festivities, I have some rather disappointing news that I must share with the group.  I know there has been some discussion on the blog regarding me yodeling in a pair of tradition Bavarian garb, but despite my best efforts, I was unable to acquire said articles of clothing.  I looked for 2 hours while I was waiting for Scott for anyone to be selling anything that resembled a Riccola commercial, but for some inexplicable reason, the entire middle of town was closed on Saturday.  I found 7 (7!!!) stores that sold Lederhosen and not one was open.  I simply do not understand.

If there is any day in the year you need to be open, I would think the last weekend of Oktoberfest would be that day.  I was crushed (Scott, not so much).  So word to the wise:.  If you ever decide to do this, bring your own attire.  Sad, sad day people.  This could have been the stuff dreams are made of, but we can't dwell on what might have been.  Have to move forward.  This was as good as we could do:

Here's a bad shot of me and a good one of Scott.

But unlike us, there were tons of people who pulled out their favorite table cloth pattern and wore it around town in style.  I have some shots of the Beer Halls in a bit, but Oktoberfest is about the people so here are some of my favorite shots of the crowd.

I hope this finally puts the whole, "You can't go out past Labor Day with shorts and suspenders" debate to rest for good.

As you can tell by the fact that everyone is standing upright (and the guy in the middle is able to squat without falling down), this was before they made it into the Beer Hall

The only place outside of working for FTD that guys looking like this can get away with walking around with flowers all night long.

Apparently the Bavarians, like fighter pilots, find it most effective to move in a "Flying V" pattern when on patrol for the ladies.

This is called a Dirndl.  It is the traditional dress of the Bavarian working class.  I'm making it my personal mission in life to see that the females in the States take a good hard look at making this their official hangin' out attire.

Just another example.  Keep in mind this has nothing to do with anything other than I think they would be very comfortable for yall to wear. I'm totally looking out for you on this one. . . No no. . .no need to thank me.  It's what I do (For those of you preparing your "Kenny, you are a sexist pig" comment, just wait for the grand finale before pushing send.  I promise it will get much better.).

Scott got an infinitely better shot of this guy with his kid, but thanks to Sony's proprietary equipment, this is the best I can do for now.  I'll just say that Dad here is wearing shorts, knee high socks, and a shirt about two sizes too small. If you saw him full profile, this would be the picture of the post.  Kills me not to show you the full on shot of these two.  Classic.




So the the whole festival has a bunch of parts to it.  There are the typical cool fair rides, and there is cruising up and down the street looking at all the booths and eating, etc. But the thing that separates Oktoberfest from anything I've ever been to, are the Beer Tents.  They are these huge 5,000 seat beer halls with a big polka band and thousands upon thousands of happy people eating and drinking and singing and toasting each other every 30 seconds or so.  This is what it is all about.  So of course, since this is the spot to be, it is impossible to get seats unless you know a guy who knows the 2nd cousin of the wife of the owner of the tent.

Well, since Scott and I didn't get to the party until around 5 Saturday night due to the flights, etc., we got shut out of the tents.  People reserve seats almost as soon as the previous year is through and the few remaining general admission seats are probably sought after by 100 folks for every one seat.  After a failed attempt to get past the bouncers by having Scott "show a little leg", we decided it would be best to try again the next day when we could get to the tent at an appropriate hour to start drinking beer:  10:00 AM.  So that's what we did, and by golly if we didn't beat all the other folks with hangovers and have ourselves a blast.  Most of these shots are at the Hofbrauhaus Tent, which from what I'm told, is the Big Wig in this group of 10-20 different beer halls:

Nothing like a little party with a few thousand of your closest friends singing "Heeeeeyyyy Babyyyyy!  I want to knowowow, If you'll be my girlll.  Dun dun nuh nuh" at the top of their lungs.

Here's a shot of the band.  As an added bonus, they also spontaneously break out classic Old Fat White Guy dance routines that thankfully don't include: 1) The Electric Slide 2) The Macarena 3) Somebody choking on a bratwurst

Here's Scott with his pint and our humongous Pretzel.

And then me.  Not my favorite beer of the trip, but you have to have one or they throw you out of the Hall (only half kidding here).

You see this exact picture every thirty seconds.  8.5 Euros a pop (~$13).

Ever find yourself thinking if you only had a pretzel, you could get out of whatever situation you were facing at the moment?  Well friend, have I got good news for you. . .

This is a second beer hall that we popped into.  As you can see, it is quite similar to the first, just different colors, different songs, and a different beer distributor.  Again, we went early, before a lot of people were well past being able to walk home let alone drive, but the atmosphere here can only be conveyed if you've experienced it first hand.  Just a great event all around...

Yes indeed.  A truly great event.  Show of hands:  Who thinks Germany is awesome?  (ok ladies, NOW you can start writing.)










Next post, Scott and I head to the German/Austrian border for a tour of the Eagle's Nest, which is Hitler's Alpine headquarters during WWII.