T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
Since I already posted about most of Munich’s Christmas markets last year, I’ve been skipping the play-by-play this time around. But don’t let that worry you; rest assured I am silently guzzling down the glühwein and feuerzangenbowle all over town. Munich does have one brand new market this year, so I figured it could have … Read more
I DID host a Thanksgiving dinner for 20 people, and it was wonderful. I DID NOT make a turkey. The lovely and multi-talented Headbang8 and Kim tackled that task. Everyone was quite impressed with the outcome. I hear the job involved sawing off necks (alas, no photos of that). I DID make a couple pumpkin … Read more
Back home in Munich, and the fun continues. Last night we participated in Moment of Starlings, a flash mob event that momentarily bewildered many a passerby downtown. We received information on the meeting point by SMS about an hour before the event was to start. After crowding into a bookstore to listen to an introduction … Read more
Somehow we managed to survive another whole Oktoberfest, concluding with a day in the Schützen Festzelt. This is the largest tent at Oktoberfest, and they really know how to pack in the people. As we were ordering up our first round of beers the tent shook with a mighty loud boom. Everyone jumped a bit … Read more
After a couple nice visits last year, I was really looking forward to our evening reservation at the Weinzelt this year. Overall it was a fabulously fun Oktoberfest night, but my esteem for this tent has dropped considerably. I’ll have to be on the lookout for a new favorite. The main reason I love the … Read more
Tomorrow (Saturday, October 17th, 2009) afternoon Munich will experience its first Carrotmob. If you understand German, watch the video below (if you don’t, check out Carrotmob’s English-language website): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6rRnkr9Akw] The idea behind Carrotmob is to reward businesses which pledge to become more environmentally-friendly by delivering a bunch of consumers to their door. In this case, … Read more
A new set of visitors, a new introductory tour of the Wiesn. We went around noon on Wednesday and poked our heads into several of the tents. Most of them were pretty quiet, and all of them had free tables. Only the Hofbräu tent was full of rowdy drunks at this hour. We decided to … Read more
Thanks to its charming decorations and lively atmosphere, the Hacker tent (Himmel der Bayern) makes it onto lots of people’s list of favorite Oktoberfest tents. The walls are painted up into a fairytale-like Bavarian town, and the ceiling is a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Today (a Thursday) we decided to go for lunch, … Read more
Last year I don’t think I even noticed the tiny tents interspersed amongst the big Oktoberfest tents, but there they are. Most of them have names which describe what kind of animal they most like to kill and cook up for your dining pleasure. We spent yesterday evening in the Heinz Wurst- und Hühnerbraterei, a … Read more
Ozapft is! Munich’s mayor tapped the ceremonial first keg at noon yesterday with two brisk swings of the mallet. Bring on the drunken revelry. We spent the first evening in the Ochsenbraterei tent. We had a table reserved, which is the only reason we even considered going opening day. All the tents were full, and … Read more