After studying abroad in Germany for a semester, majoring in it, and now living here for a year, I told myself that it was okay to shell out some money on a dirndl. I'll at least wear it again for Karneval and then Frühlingsfest...and then every Halloween for the rest of my life. Katherine was fortunately able to borrow my friend Ashleigh's dirndl. After getting ready, we walked about thirty minutes to the outskirts of the city, where Okotberfest was being held in a giant tent. Until we got really close, we definitely got a lot of interesting stares from people...two girls walking around in dirndls holding beer bottles. Upon arrival though, we fit in perfectly.
Now of course, the Münster celebration is probably 537803x smaller than the true Oktoberfest in München, but I didn't try hard enough to make plans to travel down there, nor had the money to spend, but this one sufficed perfectly. I can go pretty crazy, but based on things I've heard, München may even be too crazy for me, unless one day I've got solid plans made way in advance as well a big group to go with me that includes lots of native Germans. So a single tent six-midnight shindig suited me and Katherine just fine :)
Walked into a dimly lit tent to hundreds of Germans in their dirndls and lederhosen eating, drinking, and being merry. Germans of every age! Well...no Kinder... but like all ages from us to the very old! I also told Katherine at one point that I don't think I had ever seen so many white people in one place at the same time. Went straight for the bar, ordered some steins, and basically walked in circles figuring out the best way to find German friends so it wasn't just us being pathetic all night.
Didn't take long for the liquid courage to sink in, and once the band started playing we moved closer to all the tables in the middle to do some tanzen and started talking to some German guys about the fact that the table next to us looked like it was about to break because a group of at least ten definitely over fifty year olds was jumping up and down on it. Miraculously though, the bench never broke! German engineering at its finest!
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| the aforementioned bench! |
So these guys didn't speak a lot of English so we actually spoke German to them the whole night, which ended up being a solid amount of hours. And of course it's easier to speak another language when you've had a bit to drink because you're not obsessing over how precisely you're speaking it, so we ended up having an absolute blast! And that was the largest chunk of time I've spoken German since I've gotten here (can't believe it's only been three weeks!) so I was happy about that.
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| making friends |
Probably my favorite part of the night, was when the band played "Sweet Caroline." Obviously, I can't go to the BC football games this season, and the band didn't play it at the first game that I was able to attend, so when we heard those famous opening "duh duh duhhh"s, Katherine and I nearly fell off the table we were so excited. We screamed the whole song and lamented the end of our college days wahhhh. But I digress...
After singing and dancing and drinking and Spass macht-ing, the Fest ended at midnight and of course, this being Europe, we had to move on to another club and stayed there til about two. Clubbing in dirndls and lederhosen... well now I can cross that one off my list! We continued to have a great weekend- finally got admitted to ourselves that we were too tired and hungover to do ExtraBlatt buffet for breakfast, so we slept another hour, and then spent a solid hour shopping in the market buying ingredients for our dinner- fresh carrots, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, bread, and chicken, and noodles. Most likely the freshest meal I've ever eaten in my life! We spent a lovely day walking around the city (the sun was shining again!) and spent some time by the Aasee, and then spent the night with some of the Münster Massive and somehow managing to end up once again, at some crazy hard-rock/metal grungy metal club, where I looked a little out of place trying to get jiggy with it in my sparkly shirt. Sometimes I miss BC and Boston nightlife and always knowing what to wear!
Regardless though, another great visit with Katherine, and a great couple days of becoming more immersed in German culture! :)
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