Oktoberfest

O K T O B E R F E S T

There’s a nice bit of doggerel in German:

“Du sollst reisen vor dem Sterben, Sonst reisen deine Erben……”

(you should travel before death, otherwise your heirs will do the traveling).

Germans take this to heart and are constantly turning up in odd corners of the globe to satisfy their wanderlust.  I (as you have no doubt already absorbed) am so tired of travel, and crowds, and people, and crowds, and airports, and crowds, that I never want to travel ever again.  My farm is world enough for me.

Yet, there are things that are “site specific.”  You have to go to that place to experience that thing.  People try to mitigate this by building replicas of say, the Eiffel Tower in their own town.  There are versions from Las Vegas, Nevada to Tianducheng, China, to Slobozia, Romania.  But I’m sure a good portion of the population in Slobozia would still rather see the real thing in Paris.

So too with Oktoberfest.  The world’s biggest and most well-known Festival has been duplicated across the globe – from the Yukon to Mumbai.  We even have two competing Oktoberfests right here in our small county (pop. 7,143).

Now Munich just happens to be one of my all-time favorite cities in the world.  If I had to live in an actual city, it might even be my first pick – certainly in the top three.  But, never, ever, have I wanted to be there in the last two weeks of September or early October.  Oh, the humanity!

We have a lot of nieces and nephews.  We don’t often get a chance to see them all, as they’re scattered pretty widely across two continents. This means that they don’t get to see much of each other either. In fact, the last time most of them were together in one place was in this photo from 2004.

And with our niece Meg’s wedding last year, it was also clear that they were rapidly getting to that age where careers and marriages and their own families would soon start taking up more and more of their time.  That would mean even less time for the wider family and certainly less time for crusty old uncles.  So at that wedding we hatched a plan.  Those nieces and nephews who were out of college, and had not yet reached 30, would be invited on a trip with their uncles.  No spouses or partners.  Just cousins and us.  Poor Meg got the short end of this stick as she was above the age threshold and was busy planning a life that would include babies, but there were 8 eligible cousins who fit the bill.

We still needed a destination, however.  I was looking for a place that would have some allure for 20-somethings ready to party, but that wasn’t some some trashy beach destination where 60-ish uncles would feel horribly out of place.  I also wanted some place filled with art and architecture and tradition, so that I could still maintain my role as pontificator on “What to Do,” “How to Behave,” and “What Must be Appreciated.”  My “uncle-isms” as they are known, are tolerated with good humor to my face, but I’m sure are widely mocked when I’m not around.  I don’t mind too terribly much.  Even if none of my admonitions sink in, I’ve earned a place in family lore because of them.

At any rate, with those parameters in mind, the choice was surprisingly easy.  Why not show them one of my favorite spots in the world?  It’s filled with great food, art, history, architecture, and culture.  Plus, what young person on this planet does NOT want to go to Oktoberfest?

So invites were extended.  They had to manage their own airfare, but any other transportation, food, lodging, etc would be on us.  Who wants to come?  Well, they all did!

My pleasant surprise at this rapidly turned to alarm.  How to organize it all?   My alarm quickly grew to panic when I realized that you don’t just show up in Munich and waltz into a beer tent and start drinking.  People reserve hotel rooms over a year in advance.  And seats at a beer tent in the prime evening hours are pretty much impossible to reserve – they all have standing reservations from people that have been going for decades!  Who knew?  One or two people might be able to find a space as walk-ins, but not a party of 10.  I was having major second thoughts about this trip.  Not only would it cost me a fortune, but it would also mean serious crowds and travel hassles with no guarantees of a good time.  Did I mention that I also hate travelling?

But I had 9 months to plan and slowly it all started coming together.  Our niece Helene conveniently happens to be in grad school in Munich, so she was able to accommodate her two female cousins in her small apartment.  I found the last available hotel rooms for the five boys and two uncles.  As far as tent reservations at the festival, there was absolutely nothing available, but it turns out there was a sanctioned after-market website where reservations could be sold off by those who couldn’t attend.  The only thing was, this official website only ‘opens’ two weeks before the festival starts and available table reservations get snapped up within seconds of posting.  Needless to say, I was on the site 24/7.  It paid off.  Well, only sorta.  I got a table for Sunday evening at the one non-beer tent in the whole festival, and then another table in a great tent, but on Monday in the afternoon.  Still, it was something.  The rest of the time we would have to take our chances.

It was a blast.  First of all, all the cousins got along very well and were truly delighted in each other’s company.  Second, they’re all quite bright and interesting, and very good at pretending that their old uncles aren’t as old and out of it as they really are.  Third, they were all very game to have a good time no matter what the circumstances.  So we enjoyed ourselves splendidly.  When not singing and drinking in beer tents and going on carnival rides, we had the best time in the Englischer Garten – they even made me swim in the Eisbach!, and in between some edifying visits to churches, palaces, and museums. We even were able to hang out with besties from home, Drew & Tyler.  When it was all done we said good-bye to the kids, took a nap, and then had a nice quiet adult dinner with dear old fraternity brother Uli Berger and his wife Gabi, before returning to the States.

At a time when nasty old men (Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, et al) create so much pain and anxiety in the world, there’s something so very joyful in seeing young people from around the world releasing their inner Bavarian in festival of wholesome drunkenness.  How could your heart not swell watching Chinese dude-bros in Lederhosen, and Indian lasses eschewing a Sari for a Dirndl, linked arm in arm with a mixed bag of drunken Italians and Australians all belting out “Sweet Caroline” at the top of their lungs and having the time of their lives?  That is indeed the world I want to live in.

Once back home it dawned on us that we still have 7 teen and college-aged nieces and nephews who are now full of expectations for ‘their’ trip with their uncles in the 2030s.  Now how are we going manage that in our mid-70s?