As we headed for Strasbourg, France we thought it would be fun to stop in Munich for a night or so. However, it turned out Munich was in the midst of Oktoberfest (Sept 24 – Oct 5)and there were no hotel rooms to be had. So we settled for the next best thing. We headed from Praha to Munich in the morning, spent the afternoon and evening in Munich and then headed to our hotel room in Burgau, Germany, about 100 kilometers west of Munich.
It seemed to us that Munich residents may dress during Oktoberfest like Calgarians dress during the stampede. These are only two examples of people we saw dressed in traditional German clothing.
Laura-Lyn insisted (ok, ok, I was an easy sell) that we have a beer in one of Munich’s outdoor beer gardens. I’d like the record to show that the near beer is Laura-Lyn’s (who is taking he picture) and the one further up the table is mine and is only coincidentally in front of he children.
The Munich town hall, like Praha’s town hall has a special clock that crowds gather to watch as it signals an hour or half hour. I have a series of pictures that show the entire, elaborate, production but I’ll just leave it to your imagination.
We decided that the Hofbrauhaus might be a good place to mark Oktoberfest and have a German dinner. After some initial misgivings, Allister agreed to join us and enjoyed his visit for reasons I’ll describe below.
Life is good!
As Allister and Charlotte have grown older we’ve gone through various stages in their restaurant-going development. They range from our first visits where we merely survived (“Allister, put down that salt shaker”, “Charlotte, please come back”) to their growing ability, as they got older, to use the coloring books and puzzles offered by the restaurants to keep them occupied until food arrived.
I suppose the Hofbrauhaus was just a variant on the coloring book and puzzles, but the idea that you could, and were encouraged to do so, carve up the tables was an entirely new experience for Allister and he stepped up to the challenge.
Allister insisted that we collect a picture of the band.
