Oktoberfest 2010... Third Time's A Charm!! :)

I know I'm a little behind in posting this, but I promise that it's worth it! :) This year marked our third year of participating in the Oktoberfest celebration in Munich... And, as always, it proved to be a very fun time! :) (You can click here or here for a quick look back at our previous Oktoberfest experiences... :)).

Based on last year's early morning train excursion into Munich (which made for a VERY long day!), we opted for a different approach this time around. So, this year, we headed to Munich on Friday night, where we then woke up at the crack of dawn (i.e. 4:30 in the morning!) on Saturday to head over to the fairgrounds, so that we could get into line outside of one of the tents by 6:30 a.m.... And, as always, there was already a huge line by the time we arrived... Grr! (We actually applied to get a table this year so that we could avoid standing in line, but after applying at 4 different tents, and being denied by all of them, we had to go for the tried and true "get-up-early-and-stand-in-line" approach! :)) Oh, and this year, we were also lucky enough to stand outside and wait in the rain and very chilly weather... Good times! :) (But, I have to admit, that as cold as it was, it hardly phased me, as I was so excited to be wearing my new dirndl at Oktoberfest! :) Yes, I know... I'm a dork! :)) Needless to say, when the doors opened at 8:30, the crowd was even more eager to get inside than in previous years... So, in typical German fashion, it turned into a mob scene real quick... And, as was the case in previous years, I was shoved into the tent by a crowd of overly excited Germans (Literally, I was smashed between two very large men, and my feet were not touching the ground!)... I have to say, that as much as I love Oktoberfest, and as sad as I was that this is the last Oktoberfest we'll be able to attend while living here in Germany, I will not miss standing in line to get into the tents... The Germans are so very unpleasant to deal with in large crowds... It's almost as if they develop a mob mentality... Craziness!!

Once we got into the tent, we then had to make a mad dash to try to find a table to sit at (The basic rule at Oktoberfest is this... No table, No service! So, finding a table is of extreme importance! :))... So, while the rest of our crew ran to find a table, I waited at the entrance for Brian to arrive(considering I was one of the first to get into the tent being that I was caught up in the crowd and shoved in... the joys of being short!)... However, after a few minutes of not seeing him, I started to get a little worried... That's when I was informed that he hadn't been allowed in because he had his camera backpack with him (weird!!)... Basically, after standing outside in the rain for an hour and a half, he had been turned away at the door for having a backpack... Grrr! At which point, he had to go all the way back to the train station to put his backpack into the locker, and then come all the way back to the fairgrounds to stand in line again... And, by the amount of people still waiting to get in, the odds of him getting into the tent didn't look so promising... Yikes! Meanwhile, the rest of our group had found a table for us (yay!) and we proceeded to wait for Brian to make his entrance...

Well, after waiting for about an hour, knowing that Brian was outside in the rain and waiting (again!) to get in, I started to get quite impatient... So, I went into what I like to call "Super Wife" mode! :) I managed to find a very nice security guard, where I played the sweet, innocent tourist who can't find her husband card, batted my eyelashes a bit and gave him my biggest smile, and within minutes, Brian and I were reunited... HA! :) It was shortly after that when the Oktoberfest shenanigans officially began! :) The rest of the day was spent drinking masses of delicious German bier, eating authentic German food, singing along with the German band, dancing on the table, and having ourselves a fabulous time!! :) I can honestly say, that the third time around definitely didn't disappoint... As the saying goes, the third time's a charm! :)

So, without further ado, here's some photos of our Oktoberfest celebration! Enjoy! :)

Getting ready to head to the fairgrounds... Doesn't he look cute in his lederhosen?! :)

Heading in on the train... Don't we look all bright-eyed and bushy tailed?! :)

Everyone's ready for a day of Oktoberfest celebrations! :)

Waiting in the rain... Good times! :)

We found ourselves a table... Yay! Now we wait for Brian to show up... :)

Inside the Hacker-Pschorr tent... It's theme is "Bavarian Heaven"... :)

Brian and I reunited and sharing our first masse of the day! :)

Our whole crew...

I (heart) German bier! :)

My traditional Oktoberfest pose! :)

Brian started counting his beers... This was number 1! :)

John wanted to count his as well... #1!

Prost!! :)

Some guy stood on his table and proceeded to drink a masse of bier out of his shoes (make that his rather old and very worn shoes! :))... Eeewww!!

A Bavarian breakfast... Weisswurst and senf, bier, and brezel (not pictured as it had already been devoured be a table of very hungry people! :))

Bier #2...

(And that's pretty much where we stopped counting! :))

And don't we all look so sweet and innocent?! :)

Maciek apparently found it necessary to double fist... Even with the masses! :)

The guys looking like such Germans... :)

How Bavarian do we look?! :)

Katrina and Benjamin...

Mirna and I in our dirndls... :)

Two thumbs up for Oktoberfest! :)

They look as if they could be up to trouble! :)

Towards the end of the day... Clearly, we enjoyed ourselves! :)

Mehr Kuerbis!! :)

Hey all!! As promised, here are the rest of the pictures from our day spent at the World's Largest Pumpkin Display... Enjoy!! :)

Can't wait to see the kuerbis (i.e. pumpkins)!! :)

A small portion of the castle grounds... So pretty! :)

Heading down to the pumpkin display...

The Ludwigsburg Castle was the backdrop for the display... Gorgeous!!

Let the pumpkin outrageousness begin!! :)

Here's a blue whale made out of pumpkins...

They had a huge display showing all the different types of pumpkins that were used, and where they each originated from... Overall, they used 450 different varieties of pumpkins... Now that's alot of pumpkins! :)

Can't say I've ever seen anything like this before! :) These were a pretty unique style of kuerbis...

The seahorse...

Hang 10, Dude!! :)

Turtle Island...

The octopus was pretty cool looking!

Look at all the pumpkins!! :)

I thought these were quite cute! :)

MOOOOO!! :)

Strolling through the castle grounds...

The colors were stunning!!

Taking a break to soak up the scenery... Plus, I just wanted an excuse to play in the leaves! :)

Check out the size of the pumpkin!! And that wasn't even one of the largest ones! :)

My favorite display! :)

(For all of you that know me, you probably remember my dream of one day becoming a marine biologist... That is until I had to take chemistry in college, where I quickly changed my mind! :) Either way, the theme of the pumpkin display was quite exciting for me! :))

Can you find the fish in this display??

Pirate Island with a backdrop of the castle... Pretty cool! :)

Too cute!

The walking paths were all lined with bales of hay... How festive! :)

Some very strange looking pumpkins!

The mermaid...

I thought this was one of the cutest pumpkin carvings I've seen! :)

Ribbit... :)

I love autumn and all of its colors!! :)

Brian in front of the Ludwigsburg Castle... :)

Pumpkin Overload...

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween weekend!! Brian and I had a nice, long, relaxing weekend filled with alot of pumpkins! :) It was also a long weekend here, so that made it even better! Monday was considered a holiday here, so pretty much everything was closed in honor of the day. The holiday celebrated was Allerheiligen (i.e. All Saint's Day) where they honor the lives of all saints, as well as remember deceased relatives and visit their graves on that day.

Like I said earlier, our weekend was filled with alot of pumpkins! Not only did we attempt to make a couple of homemade pumpkin dishes, but we also attended the world's largest pumpkin display on Sunday!! Needless to say, by Monday we were pretty much in pumpkin overload! :)

We spent Saturday cooking up some tasty pumpkin treats. Now, the difference between here and the U.S., is that one is unable to find pumpkin in a can over here... Thus, making it much more difficult (or so we thought) to make pumpkin-flavored specialties. Well, we decided that we were tired of not being able to partake in pumpkin inspired meals during this time of year, so we took matters into our own hands... Yep, that's right... We decided to try our hand at making pumpkin-flavored dishes from scratch! :) So, I went out and bought the pumpkins, while Brian researched how we could use them to make the pumpkin soup and pumpkin cookie recipes we had found... Yes, I know, we sound like complete dorks! But, hey, it worked! :) And, after MANY hours in the kitchen, and using virtually every pot and pan we own, we enjoyed ourselves a very delicious dinner of pumpkin soup and pumpkin seed seele bread (which, I admit, I bought at the store! :)), with pumpkin cookies for dessert... YUM!! It was definitely a great way to celebrate the Halloween weekend!!

After cooking all day Saturday, we decided to spend Sunday in the car. We took a drive to a town called Ludwigsburg to experience the World's Largest Pumpkin Display. Not only was it a gorgeous day for a drive (the leaves are so pretty right now!), but we had alot of fun at the pumpkin display (or as the Germans call it, the "Kuerbis Ausstellung"). The display was on the grounds of the Ludwigsburg Residenz Schloss (i.e. the Ludwigsburg Castle), and it was a beautiful setting for a pumpkin fest... Not only were the displays impressive, but to see the trees ablaze in color and the castle overlooking the entire area, it was quite a spectacular sight! :) The pumpkin display's theme was "Under the Sea" this year, and they used over 500,000 pumpkins and over 450 different varieties of pumpkins to make the sculptures!! And, not only did they have the pumpkins on display, but they also offered a large variety of pumpkin inspired foods and drinks to sample... It was a great day of strolling through the castle grounds, soaking up the gorgeous scenery, enjoying all of the fun pumpkin sculptures, and sampling some delicious food... It was such a fun way to celebrate Halloween! :)

I hope all of you had a fabulous Halloween as well, and that everyone was able to enjoy lots of yummy treats!! :)

And here's a few photos of our pumpkin-filled weekend... Not all of them have been uploaded onto our compute, so here's a quick sneak peak until I can get the rest up... Enjoy!

Our pumpkin experiment! :)

Our pumpkins were gutted and baked... At this point we were getting ready to scoop out the insides for our soup...

Our yummy, pumpkin inspired dinner...

Pumpkin bean soup, pumpkin seed seele bread, and autumn inspired wine... Delicious!

And, notice the computer that was included in our meal? We spent our dinner watching live footage of the Rally to Restore Sanity put on by Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert in Washington D.C.! Since we couldn't actually be there, we decided the next best thing was to view it live, while eating our dinner! :)

These delicious pumpkin cookies were dessert... They literally melt in your mouth!! Love them! :)

Happy Halloween greetings from the World's Largest Pumpkin display!! :)

One of the many displays we saw... This was an entire island made from pumpkins! The palm trees and turtles are all made from pumpkins... How cool! :)

I thought these little guys were cute! :)

Brain was clearly excited about his soup!! :)

And, yes, after spending the previous evening eating pumpkin soup for dinner, we decided to have pumpkin soup (again!) at the pumpkin fest! :) Let's just say, it definitely gave our homemade soup a run for its money! :)