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Share Your View: Photo Essays

This is one of the Oktoberfest photos I liked, but that didn’t fit my photo essay last week, so I’ll share it here! I’m also musing on Food, Glorious Food over at Mortal Muses today, so come by and say hi!

But today is the day that you get to share your view in the Exploring with a Camera series. You’ve had a week since the Photo Essay post, what have you seen since then? Have you tried a photo essay of your own? Do you have one from the past you want to share? Did you find a photo essay in your online reading that you want to share with other readers here? We want it all! 

Please use the linky widget to add your link below (you will need to visit the blog to see the widget) and share your view with the rest of us today.

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Camaraderie of Beer

Our Oktoberfest trip would not have been complete without a visit to one of the beer tents run by the major beer companies of Munich. We randomly chose the Spaten tent upon arrival Sunday morning, and were lucky to find a spot among the already crowded tables. These tents are giant. There are thousands of people inside, sitting on benches back to back, squeezed in with as many people as possible at your table.

That may seem uncomfortable, it if it weren’t for the camaraderie of beer that prevails here. If you are drinking beer, you are friends with everyone else. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, tourist or local, you are an integral part of this festival just by sitting on the bench and ordering a liter. That was a surprising and enjoyable aspect of Oktoberfest for us.

And just wait until the band starts up! An entire tent of people raising their voice in song and their liters of beer for a joyous toast. “Ein prosit, ein prosit, der gemutlichkeit,” the crowd choruses together, followed by a cheer and a big drink of beer. You can’t help but smile! I surprised myself by joining in, apparently I had learned Oktoberfest songs in high school German class all unknowingly.

Oktoberfest is a happy festival. A time of gathering, with old and new friends. Everywhere you looked there were knots of people toasting, singing, eating, cheering, laughing. Calling back and forth across tables to each other. You can sit and talk and happily drink your beer all day long. And when you finish one liter, the empties are cleared away…
…and before you know it, a new round makes it’s way to you, to start all over again.
If you ever have the chance to go to Oktoberfest, don’t hesitate, just go. Enjoy a few liters, with thousands of your new best friends, in the camaraderie of beer. Pros’t!

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Surprising Traditions

One of the things that is so wonderful about visiting something famous like Oktoberfest, in person, is that you get to see beyond the cliches to find other surprising details. Like these gingerbread cookies. These were sold everywhere around Oktoberfest. Most of these had little messages and notes of love frosted into them, from “I love you” and “I’m a princess” to “I’m single,” and you were them strung on a ribbon like a necklace.

These are part of the festival tradition, a badge of honor that says, “I was at Oktoberfest today.” Most kids had them on as they left for home, riding the U-bahn and fidgeting with the cookies. They are clearly also part of the local courtship rituals, with men and women walking hand in hand, in their lederhosen and dirndls, wearing giant cookies (literally, more than a foot across some of these) with messages that proclaim a relationship.

Here is our “little prince” with this cookie, we couldn’t miss out on this tradition ourselves. We tried the gingerbread cookie later, and to be honest, it wasn’t that great to us. But I bet to those who have grown up with Oktoberfest, it’s the taste of a season they relish.

Who knew? And you probably thought Oktoberfest was all about beer. (Don’t worry, it still is, those images will come too!)

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