Oktoberfest!

Last year when I met my running group they were already talking about Oktoberfest. They usually get a group together and go to the party at the Fischerhutte, which is next to the lake we run around on Fridays. These parties are really popular, so we got organized at the end of June before the summer break and bought our tickets together. I had been told that we really needed to wear authentic clothing, so when we were in Austria in August Dan and I went shopping at Trachtenwelt. I must have tried on 25 dirndls - the traditional dress worn over a cropped shirt with an apron tied on top. I was shopping the bargain rack, so it took me a while to find one that fit okay and wasn’t really weird looking. Meanwhile Dan found a pair of lederhosen that was deeply discounted due to a flaw. Score!

Photo taken on my Friday morning run:

Restocking the kegs for the party tonight

Friday October 9th was the day. We dressed up and made our way on public transit. I felt like I was wearing a Halloween costume, but it’s funny that no one even looked twice at us, because we were just wearing traditional clothing and, after all, it was October.

Cute lederhosen butt!

Pretzels adorned the chandelier decorations!

At the Fischerhutte a crowd of similarly dressed party-goers was assembling. It took us a while to get everyone together because there ended up being about 30 of us. So by the time we entered the hall the party was already in full swing.
A band was playing on the stage and a beer maid handed us each an enormous and heavy jug of beer as we entered. On each table was a lovely spread of appetizers: pretzels, meats, cheese, bread, some pasty spread stuff, and a big mound of what I thought was potato salad. I was about to dig in but decided to ask Sarah’s husband, who was sitting next to me, “Do you know what that is?” “I’m not sure,” he said. He told me he would try a little bite to see. “You don’t want to take too much,” he told me, “because it might be something like lard.” Lard! I thought he was kidding. “Yeah, it’s lard,” he declared. A huge mound of lard on the platter, wow. Shana got excited when she found out it was lard and immediately spread a large shmear on a piece of bread. I tried a tiny bit but didn’t feel the need to have any more.

This was a really fun party! The band plus the room packed full of people was super loud, so it was hard to have a conversation unless someone was right next to you and you could shout in their ear. But the band was really fun and the atmosphere was definitely festive with all the costumes and braided hair and free-flowing beer carried to your table by waiters and waitresses in traditional dress who could carry 3 or 4 of those huge mugs in each hand. Eventually the main course was delivered, a choice of a huge schnitzel or a half chicken. It was good but I only had a few bites before they turned down the lights and kicked up the music.

Some of the girls, all decked out and standing up on the tables

People were already starting to stand on the long benches and dance, and I just had to join them when the band started in on “Son of a gun we’ll have big fun on the bayou” - my Cajun roots, and all. As the song was ending I watched with sadness as the waitstaff began to clear all the half-eaten plates from our table - there went my food! It was too loud to stop them, plus I was honestly pretty full from the appetizers. I HATE wasting food, so it made me sad to know how much food didn’t get eaten that night - I saw so many full plates being cleared away. But the party continued and soon everyone was up on the benches. That’s pretty much where we stayed until midnight, dancing to a wide variety of music from what I assume was traditional German or Austrian to YMCA. At midnight the lights came on and we headed home to put away the dirndl and lederhosen until next year!