Munich - Octoberfest - CRAZY

Look how they pile people in these tents

These are some of the people we met here.

This is what people looked like after they spent all day at "the celebration." Look at the attire. People get dressed up in these expensive outfits. It's pretty incredible.

This is part of the parade.
Notice all the liters of beer this barmaid is carrying.

Well, we survived Octoberfest! The city goes from a population of 1.5 million to 7 million people for the biggest beer bash in the world. On opening day there were 14 tents set up, each holding 10,000 people. People get there at 8:00 in the morning just to get a seat. The streets are packed and there is a big parade. The mayor taps the keg and has the first beer at noon, and then all tents start serving the beer. 100 barmaids come busting out of their corners, each carrying about 10 1liter glasses of beer. They are blowing their whistles and police directing traffic. After about 2 hours everyone has gotten served. There is a band in the middle of each tent and the families that own the brewery encourage more and more drinking. It is the craziest thing we have ever seen. Aside from this, we actually met some very interesting people. It was great to hear how different the world is from just what we know. We also did a walking tour of the city and retraced Hitler's steps through Munich. The history is just as fascinating as it was in Berlin.
Today we fly out to Paris, and we'll keep you updated on our Progress - internet sure can be hard to find, and when the screen is all in German, it makes it that much harder.