The Festivities of Oktober

I went with the family to the Oktoberfest enterance parade. It was so cool! Oktoberfest is an internationally famous festivial that goes on here in Munich. And it is all about beer. The entire festival is about beer. You would think it would be this trashy, gross festival to go to (kind of like Chilifest) but it only sort of is. It is a giant carnival that lasts for three weeks and ends in the first week of  Oktober (so it's confusing that it is actually in September). There are 18 different giant tents (and one wine tent) from the different Breweries in Bavaria, and a few from other areas of Germany. So in the next 3 weeks, there are suppose to be some where around 9 million beer loving visitors in Munich.

But the parade was really great! All of the Breweries made a grand enterance with their dozens of barrels of beer decorated on horse drawn wagons. They came with marching bands and beautiful flowers. And everyone was of course dressed in the proper traditional Bavarian attire; for women, the dress is called a Dirndl, and men wear Lederhosen. So every other person in town this month is wearing these outfits and heading to the Wiesn.

These are the traditional cookies called Lebkuchen. They are so pretty and everyone wears them for a necklace, but they don't taste very good.

This is my friend Vicky. She is from Australia. And we are wearing our Dirndls. These aren't really the traditional ones but everyone's Dirndl is different! We met up after the parade to enjoy a beer together in the chaos of the crowd. My first Oktoberfest experience was a blast.