Herbstferien Part 1: Oktoberfest!

I got SO MUCH TRAVELING done in my two week fall break, and today I will give you part one of my experience – Oktoberfest in Konstanz!  Fellow Fulbrighter Susanna studied abroad there, and she was so kind as to invite me along to visit her old friends and some family that live around the Bodensee.  Konstanz is a gorgeous town in the southern province of Baden-Württemberg bordering the Bodensee, the Danube, and Switzerland, and on a clear day you can look across the lake and see the Austrian Alps.  Definitely a change of scenery from the Ruhrgebiet!

Oktoberfest prep began the week before break began – my number one task was to head to T.K. Maxx and get a bargain-priced dirndl.  Susanna was the right girl to take with me, because she made a beeline for the Tracht and started throwing every dirndl she thought would fit me into my hands.  I’m not going to lie, we spent two hours in that dressing room.  So many dirndl.  So many.  But I emerged victorious and ready for my first Oktoberfest experience!

Let the record show that Susanna is a Dirndl enabler. Help.

We spent all of Tag der Deutschen Einheit traveling by train.  It was a long day.  But a nice thing was we went right through the Rhineland.  Truly beautiful.  We stopped for a two-hour break in the town of Koblenz, a town on the Rhine that was pretty much destroyed in World War II, but they reconstructed it to look almost exactly as it did before.  There’s also a lovely castle across the river and some very lovely churches.  From Koblenz to Karlsruhe, our train view was the gorgeous Rhine River, punctuated every couple of miles by a castle up on a hill.  Rhineland Pfalz and Baden-Württemberg are two of the most beautiful states in Germany!  Le sigh.

Koblenz: Where no one ever has to make any tough decisions

Once we got to Konstanz, we headed to Maddie’s apartment, our first host of the week – she lives in the heart of Konstanz in an adorable apartment building where a cat roams freely.  We pretty much went straight to bed after 10 hours on trains, but most importantly we made plans to cook a traditional weisswurst breakfast the next day to get us ready for Oktoberfest.  During said breakfast we reviewed all the important Oktoberfest songs like “Fliegerlied,” “Schatzi Schenk mir ein Foto,” and “Atemlos durch die Nacht” (check them out they are so German).  We had a few last minute errands to run for the coming week and to get ready for our night, and then we went to the apartment building next door to eat with Susanna’s friend Lena and her family.  Lena’s parents cooked us a delicious meal of Schwäbisch Käsespätzle. nommmmmmmmmmmmms.  Oh my gosh you guys I ate so well.

LOOK AT THIS BREAKFAST SPREAD, Y’ALL

After dinner we went back to Maddie’s to prep.  Maddie and Lena both work at Uni Konstanz’s international office, so in addition to some of their friends who met at Maddie’s place we also met a couple of international students.  Hair braided and decked out in dirndl, we headed to the beer tents.

Back of the beer tent during a brief and rare moment of [relative] calm

 Once we made it into the Hofbrau tent we scoped out a table (we got super lucky and found one where those who had reserved it just never showed up), grabbed our beers, and prepared for a night of singing and dancing.  Everyone in the tent was standing up on the benches, and after every song we all sang a little Prostlied.  Two very awesome Swiss ladies joined us at our table and were probably having a better time than we were.  That’s one thing I’ll probably remember best about my Oktoberfest experience – on every side we were surrounded by super happy, friendly people who did the dance to the YMCA with us and would always Prost with us.  The atmosphere at Oktoberfest is unbelievably fun and unlike anything else!

The thing I really liked about Konstanz’s Oktoberfest is it is pretty small in comparison to, say, Munich.  Konstanz only has two main beer tents – Hofbrau and Paulaner – and their carnival area was much smaller and less crowded (yes!  Oktoberfest is more than beer tents!).  The Konstanz Oktoberfest was also noticeably not touristy – it seemed like most people there were from the Bodensee area.  I’ve never seen Munich’s monster Oktoberfest for myself, but what I’ve heard is that it’s packed with lots of very drunk tourists and reeks of… well, you can probably figure out what it reeks of.  If you’re in Germany during Oktoberfest season, I’d definitely recommend going outside of Munich for your beer tent needs where entrance fees are less expensive, participants more German, but the atmosphere still as kitschy, exciting, and fun as you’d find anywhere!

Prost to Oktoberfest