The Coopers' German Adventure!: OKTOBERFEST!

We have been MAJOR slackers with our blog lately and people have been giving us a hard time, so this week it is our goal to get caught up.

First on the list…OKTOBERFEST!

We attended a few of the fall beer festivals in September / October and had a blast. The first festival we attended was in Stuttgart on Saturday, October 28^th. Many people like this festival better than the actual Oktoberfest and I think I would have to agree. We had an awesome time in the Sonja Merz tent. The band was really fun, the food was good, the beer was great and we had an absolute blast. We took the train down that morning, spent the day in the tent, walked around the festival a bit, drove some go-carts, ate good food and came home that night. We added more beer mugs to our collection as well!

the festival grounds

the first beer

eating McDonalds on the way (we needed to get some food in our stomach :) )

We were excited to finally wear our outfits!

singing - "because we're the three best friends (and one drinking buddy ;) ) that anyone could have"

inside the tent

the crew

Next on our list of beer festivals is the real Oktoberfest in Munich on Saturday, October 2nd. We had bought our train tickets months in advance for this trip and unfortunately as a result of the government budget situation and sequestration, Brandon was unable to come along. We still had a great time, but it wasn't quite as fun as Stuttgart. However, a big part of that could just be because our group wasn't whole :).

Andrea, Toni, Warren, Cody Ben Beaudry and a few other work friends of Toni and Brandon came along on this adventure. We took an early morning train 4 hours to Munich and quickly found a place to sit in the famous Hacker Pschorr tent. We were lucky we got there right when the tent opened because seats went very quickly. The afternoon sessions are first come, first served and the evening sessions are by reservation only. You have to get really lucky as a tourist to get a reservation in one of the big tents in the evening on a weekend. We spent our afternoon in the tent which was a blast, but spent the rest of the early evening / evening tracking down our group that had gotten separated (and lost) after we left the tent (not so much fun). We hopped back on the train and rode the 4 hours home. Overall, it was still a great time (but a VERY long day).