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the secret beer garden |
[voices] |
by emily bittner "Munich
has five seasons: spring, summer, The
world's largest beer party: Oktoberfest. • • • How could six college students, studying in Europe for the year, turn their backs on Oktoberfest's storied glories? Our pilgrimage began the last weekend in September. Although we skipped our French classes to attend the party, Oktoberfest proved to be its own kind of global education. Crashing heedlessly through language barriers, we nourished international love affairs. On picnic tables slick with spilled beer, we brokered temporary Middle East peace accords. And we tippled like Bavarian princesses, just as tradition intended. The legendary party sprang out of a royal wedding between Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese in 1810. Throngs of Bavarians caroused on the Theresienwiese ("Theresa's fields") for the post-wedding celebration, which featured a horse race, music, food and plenty of beer. Almost two centuries later, revelers can all but taste the fair's past. Lederhosen-clad men and women decked out in dirndls still swing to polka bands' oompah classics. Only now they've traded heart-shaped gingerbread necklaces for purple cardboard ones that demand, "Do You Yahoo?" And today's partyers get down to covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5." But the festival's most important draw — the beer, stupid — has stayed true to tradition. During the last two weeks of September 2000, almost 7 million people from around the world converged on Munich to down its lagers, ales and pilsners. Too bad the millions of revelers booked their lodging months in advance, many as early as April or May — every one of Munich's hotels and hostels was full on Friday when we arrived. The only option left was Wies'n-Camp. Situated about 20 minutes outside the city, the former Olympic horse stadium is converted into a tent city during Oktoberfest. Inside the stadium rows and rows of identical blue tents huddled on the muddy infield. At least the owners assigned us two tents without moats. We loaded our lodging with a single sleeping bag, a cotton sheet and a pint-sized wool blanket we had lifted from our train. In our folly, we ignored the crucial calculation: Three blankets don't cover six people. Our sorrows begged to be drowned. • • • For our first Oktoberfest swigs, we headed to the world-famous Hofbrauhaus downtown. More tourists than natives squeezed into the century-old hall. Hundreds of out-of-town partyers lined the rows of picnic tables cramming the main hall. Behind them, regular patrons' Maß (mugs that contain nearly a liter of beer) lined shelves on the walls. A polka band blared tunes from a low stage in the middle of the room, while smoke and conversation mingled in the hall's rafters. We shared a table with a pair of Oktoberfest veterans, a retired couple from Albany, New York. While we downed 1-liter steins of sweating pilsners, the couple tutored us on some German language basics. The weekend's most useful piece of vocabulary was "Prost!", a German toast the couple translated as, "maybe this will help." The beer certainly helped us appreciate the off-key cacophony of some of our German neighbors. After half an hour, we were trying to belt out drinking songs with them. Some of the 50-year-old men, sporting traditional feathered felt hats, spun us around the beer hall to the gleeful polka. After hitching a ride from the Hofbrauhaus downtown to the actual fairgrounds, our stomachs were ready to plunge into the midway: almonds smothered in buttered sugar; sizzling sausages and sauerkraut; roller coasters with massive corkscrews, loops and drops. But the biggest plunge of all was the beer tents. • • • Sixteen in all, the fairground tents harbor the festival's gems — local breweries' Oktoberfest lagers. Each major brewery sponsors its own tent, a warehouse-like structure that can jam up to 10,000 thirsty faithful under its roof. Although the massive tents are erected only for the festival's three-week run, many brewers, such as Hofbrauhaus, also own permanent beer halls in Munich. Seasoned Oktoberfesters often reserve seats in their favorite tents in advance. Just as dinner begins, doors close and only a few stragglers are allowed to enter. We had no reservations and jockeyed for spots among the horde shoving its way into the Promised Land. With an elbow thrust between someone's shoulder blades, a knee to someone else's kidneys and a wink to the bouncer, we were in. We had pressed our way into the Augustiner tent. Body heat blasted into our faces. More than 6,000 revelers slung their arms over each other's shoulders, and shimmied on the picnic tables. Busty, dirndl-clad waitresses hurried by, carrying heaping platters of roast chicken or handfuls of Maß, which amounts to about 40 pounds of beer. The U.S. Navy sailors at our table recommended flashing the waiters to get more brew. They pointed out a man sporting lederhosen and life-sized plastic breasts, which had proven so effective that his friends were holding him up. We meant to go out dancing that night in Munich, but headed back to the campground to rest our throbbing feet. Exhausted from poor sleep on the train to Munich, all we needed was a good night's rest. That's exactly what we didn't get. • • • We trekked back to the campsite through fields wet with dew. None of us brought many extra clothes, so we slept in damp pants and socks. The sleeping bag covered my three friends in the other tent. In my tent, we tried to share the cotton sheet and wool blanket, which didn't cover any of us. The mercury fell to 41 degrees. Saturday, we were all cold, stiff and moving slowly. After touring the city for a few hours, we made it back to the fair at 5:30 p.m. — plenty of time to avoid the lines outside the beer halls, we thought. But once again we were relegated to the throngs cramming outside the halls. When we couldn't get in anywhere by 7 p.m., we abandoned our quest in favor of thousands of picnic tables outside Lowenbrau's. We split a table with a group of Northern Germans, who tried to explain the difference between "friendly" Bavaria and their "aloof" region. Conversation sputtered along until their friend Sven stopped by with an Italian co-ed, who was at Oktoberfest with her family. The couple's common language was English, but their preferred language — love — suffered in the translation. Until we stepped in, that is. Our task harkened back to the days of junior high school note-passing. We separately assured each hesitant lover that the other was head over heels. By the end of the encounter, they had exchanged e-mail addresses and promised to stay in contact. The girl's father visited the table several times during the courtship to treat us all to beer. Each time, the budding Casanova raised his hands and announced with a devilish grin, "I haven't touched her!" • • • Eventually we persuaded the bouncer to let us into the throbbing Lowenbrau, where a giant lion guarded the entrance. The men on my end of the table could speak no English, although they were clearly trying to tell me something. They waved their arms wildly and yelled like banshees. But I still didn't understand. Finally they pointed at themselves and said, "Saddam Hussein!" Comprehension dawned. I pointed at myself and said, "Bill Clinton!" One fell off the table laughing. But the rest embraced me and cheerfully yelled, "Friends!" Everyone is friends at Oktoberfest. Even when their countries aren't. I'd moved down the table, where another carouser offered a drink from his beat-up, sweat-stained leather hat. While the band changed its tune from polka to "Hey, Jude," he schooled me on the finer points of imbibing from a safari hat. Across the table, his friend clicked sweet nothings into my friend's ear. In Zulu. The night wasn't over yet. When the beers tents closed around 11:30 p.m., we danced away the rest of the soiree at Kunstpark Ost. The complex overflowed with young people and trendy dance clubs playing everything from hip-hop and techno to industrial and pop music. When we returned to the campground just before dawn, the fog was rolling in from the fields. Our breath hung in the air and icy sweat clung to our backs. But a few hours of sweet sleep awaited us under toasty blankets bought earlier in the afternoon. • • • Sunday we reserved for Culture, so we could tell our parents we'd done more than drink beer. Our destination was southwest, to a monastery at Andechs near the Ammer Sea. We toured the Bavarian Baroque church, which is crammed with gilded ornaments, intricate paintings and gold altar decorations. Climbing the 14 stories to the top of the church's tower is its own adventure. The church bells are inches from the steep wooden ladders and peal the hour as visitors pass. From the top of the church's tower, the countryside's rolling hills, sprawling farms and the Ammer Sea extend for miles. Visitors can see the Alps on a clear day. Before returning to France, we slipped in one last taste of Bavarian brew. Since 1455, the Andechs monks have concocted some of the world's tastiest, smoothest dark ale. Families of locals and tourists gathered at their beer garden, a porch stretching over the lush hills. High above the relaxed crowd, hot air balloons drifted between the clouds. As the sun set on the lazy afternoon, we waxed nostalgic on the trip's bittersweet moments, its highs and lows. Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out a crushed rose that a 25-year-old German architect had pressed into my hand as we left Lowenbrau on Friday night. "Marry me!" he had urged. "Next year," I laughed. "Same time, same place." You can bet I'll be there. |