Watching Inflight Entertainment
Mansi had a great time watching cartoons
Jet Airways
A Muslim Wedding
The Mobile Startup
Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest in 2 words would be Beer & Chaos.
It is as much as a tradition for the Bavarian folks as much as it is a tourist attraction. Locals throng the place in typical bavarian costumes and its quite akin to a local carnival with locals in their finery all out to have fun. We wandered around the place and decided to queue up outside the Hofbrau tent. Begging & pleading got us inside the beer garden after nearly 30 mins and we had to wait for another 20 mins before we managed to squeeze inside the main tent thanks to some confusion at the other entrance. Once in we had to plead with the waitress to serve us beers (they only come in 1 liter mugs) which she gladly agreed to for a tip. Along with the tip we ended up forking out 10 euros for a liter. We spent 4 hours standing on the sides of the reserved spaces, enjoying the music (which was mostly good barring a female rendition of Summer of 69). We made friends with folks from London, helped them get a few beers, ate the much hyped pretzel and downed 2.5 liters of beer each. It was great fun and though getting back was a breeze the next days hangover was terrible.
For the folks working at Oktoberfest (which are mostly women) it is really a lot of hard work. You will spot women carrying 6 and sometimes even 8 mugs of beer, large trays laden with food and whistling their way for people to make space for them. They also manage to clear 12 to 14 mugs at one shot and with the numerous orders flowing in they are always on their toes. Its no wonder the they get tipped very generously. And the most impressive thing about these women is that they seem to really enjoy their work due to which they are always cheerful.
Surprisingly the next day (Sunday) was relatively less crowded as we strolled in at about 6 pm. We got easy entry into a few tents since there wasn’t much action inspite of the fact that they were quite crowded. We landed at Pschorrbrau tent where we found it difficult to get in so that got us even more determined to go in. After 3-4 failed attempts one security guard agreed to let us in only after demanding a small bribe. The place was buzzing and there was a lot of love in the air with gays (mostly men) all over the place. We ordered a beer each and hung around for a while. An hour later, done with the beer, we decided to try out another tent.
We decided to give the Lowenbrau tent a shot since it had the grandest entry. We were lucky to get a table and managed to squeeze in pretty easily. We ordered 2 beers and also were pleasantly surprised to know that we could even order food (the rule at Oktoberfest is that no table, no food). I ordered stuffed veal with sauerkraut and PJ ordered what looked like steamed fries with sauerkraut. We sang & danced till the music stopped, made friends with a local and walked out of the tent with the one liter beer mug as a souvenir. Our return journey was quite uneventful but awfully cold. The proper sit down dinner made all the difference since there was no hangover the morning after, thankfully!
With 2 nights at Oktoberfest it was quite an eventful weekend and we drove out with memories which should last a lifetime
Tags: europe, munich, oktoberfestDigging with a vengance
Digging with a vengance
Originally uploaded by Vijay Basrur
The road next to our office has been dug up & how. Its as if there was a rumour about some gold discovery underground. It pains me to know how many times the roads around us get dug up, covered only to be dug up again. There is no planning at all.
When will this end?
