Saturday 9/22
We woke up excited for the parade (I love a good parade, remember I was at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade at 5 am!) and contemplated each of us taking our umbrella because it was a bit cloudy, but we didn't...not even an hour later we realized that was a big mistake! We walked our 2 blocks to the fair and that's when it hit me, we were TOTALLY the tourists! Literally almost everyone was in costume and it was only 10 am! We explored the fairgrounds for awhile because we weren't quite sure which route the parade would take. We passed a lot of rides similar (and possibly even hand-me-downs from the US) to what we'd see, but then also a few fun ones unique to them such as "The Toboggan!". We passed lots of pretzel stands, and the souvenirs you mostly saw were either gingerbread hearts varying in size from 3 inches to almost 3 feet and scarves with a pattern of daisies, some adorned with pretzel charms.
We made our way closer to the more popular beer tents and soon found the parade route. This was definitely a fun parade as everyone was in traditional costume and the wagons and carriages carrying the families behind these popular breweries were decked out in beautiful flowers and gingerbread designs. The horses and their harnesses were beautiful as well! There were several different bands, all with unique costumes, and various sized wagons came by either loaded with one ginormous keg or multiple smaller ones usually spelling out the beer house name. Literally, they deliver the beer this way! The whole time it was sprinkling but it was really started to come down towards the end so we dashed into the nearest beer tent, Lowenbrau! We didn't know it at the time, but that is actually one of the most popular halls and we were able to be in there for the festivities surrounding the first keg tap! It was quite fun, and definitely more of a madhouse than the Hofbrauhaus had been the night before! We met some nice Aussies and the girls gave us a few pointers about where to go and how to get beer. Unfortunately you can only be served if you have a seat and those were impossible to come by! These girls had lined up at 7 am to get in and said they made a mad dash and had to stake claim on their territory until 12 when the beer was allowed to be served. After walking all around we decided we'd have to go back out in the downpour of rain and either go home or try another place. We walked past Pschorr and saw that their outdoor beer garten (yes, I know I replaced my d with a t, it's German) had lots of availability (big shock since it was RAINING!). We decided to suck it up and huddled close with our one little umbrella to enjoy our first official Oktoberfest beer! It was raining SO bad the workers came out with squeegees to try to wipe the rain off of the picnic tables! While standing in the rain, we made a new friend who explained a few things to us:
-the color of your shirt depicts what part of Germany you are from
-the gingerbread hearts are given to your sweetheart
-the scarves tied around your neck signify your relationship status based on what side the knot faces
Honestly, we couldn't complain too much! We had amazing weather up until today, but the cold and rain was getting to us (me mostly, I think I was the wettest!) so we bought a few pretzels (which I stuffed into my shirt, literally giving me a "pregnant pretzel belly" and then grabbed a few brats and ran home! It felt so good to shower,put on dry clothes, and eat warm doughy pretzels with mustard and the brats were so good too! So good in fact that we all fell asleep for a few hours and had a long overdue nap! We had been on the go every day for almost 2 weeks!
When we woke up we walked to the train station to investigate booking tickets to Fussen to see the castle Matt had recommended, and then back over to the Marionplatz to grab some food.
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