Oktoberfest

We don't have many pics this year. James had the camera since I was holding Maddox most of the day and the guys took the kids on the rides. While they did that, the women (and Maddox) held down the table we managed to snag. These tables are very hard to come by with the thousands of people around so we weren't letting it go. All of the picture comments are James'

This was the big sign at the entrance.  The entrance where we were told we couldn't come in because they didn't let strollers in on the weekends!  It took us awhile but we found a place to check the stroller and after a couple of hours we finally understood; it gets way too crowded on the weekends to even think about having a stroller.

Macen on one of the rides that he just had to ride.  He's gotten more adventurous riding some of the faster rides.  He doesn't cry now if he doesn't like them, he'll just tell you that it wasn't very fun.

James posing with one of his beers.  Don't just notice the Cardinals gear he's sporting on the first day of the MLB playoffs, but check out the girl behind him dressed in the traditional dirndl.  Virtually all Germans were wearing either lederhosen or dirndl.  We couldn't get into the beer tents where the big 1 liter helles beers are served, so we made do with a small outside beer garden that served hefe-wiezen.  The beer drinkers didn't mind.

Here is a picture of the crowds from one of the rides.  This was pretty early and it got more packed as the day went.  Luckily there are enough rides so that you really didn't have to wait long.  Just imagine that all 70 some acres of the theresienwiese grounds are packed like this.  It got really crazy.

This was a really long day.  We started at 7:30 am and spent 3 hours on a standing room only train from Vilseck to Munich.  Then we got off the train found the street we needed and proceeded to follow the crowd......the wrong way.  We finally got turned around and then had the stroller drama.  Got the stroller drama taken care of.  Tried to cram into a beer tent with a whole lot of drunk Germans and decided that wasn't the place for the kids.  Finally found a beer garden and a table and everyone relaxed and had a pretty good time.  Then the cycle started all over again as we missed the early train by about 5 minutes.  Waited for the next train which was also standing room only and then finally made it home 3 hours later at about 10:30pm. 

Here's some advice if you are going to Oktoberfest.  GO DURING THE WEEK AND GET THERE EARLY.  I'll say it again GO DURING THE WEEK AND GET THERE EARLY.  Do you get the picture.  If you are taking the kids FORGET about the beer tents.  If you aren't taking the kids, MAKE A RESERVATION for the beer tents.  Overall it was a good day and a good experience, but as James says the juice probably wasn't worth the squeeze!