Opening Day

Saturday is the opening of the Oktoberfest. They have a small parade through the city that brings the beer to the festival. The Burgermeister (mayor) greets them, bangs a tap into a barrel, takes a sip and declares the party officially open.

We went to the parade Saturday and really enjoyed ourselves. The biggest difference for us was that we saw lots of horses and no firetrucks.

Lots of beer carts too. Very ornate, very pretty.

After the parade (45 minutes) we walked with the crowd to the Wies'n (fairgrounds). By noon, there were 500K people joining us walking around.In the picture that Daph took, you can see the statue of Bavaria over my shoulder. She has a couple of male lions on a leash. You can also get a sense for the 'tents' which hold between 6 and 12 thousand people each.

We sampled some of the rides and some of the carnival food. It was very fun and very family oriented in spite of what you might hear about the Oktoberfest. The one picture shows Brian coming down a wooden slide on a carpet. The best part about this ride was the way up - there was a high speed conveyor belt that you had to jump onto that wisked you up to the top. I swear the ride down was something to be endured before asking your father to go up again.

David and Dad wore our lederhosen but the rest did not.