Friday Fun Fact: Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest is here in Chattanooga.

For my family, that means the Chattanooga Market all day with our friends.

A few years ago they branched out and held it on the Walnut Street Bridge, which is a walking bridge in our city. That day was magic to me.

I took my camera and took about 1,000 pictures. The day included some of my very best friends and their families being with us and that was the magic. Friends make your days full and rich.

Last year, my parents went to the original Oktoberfest Celebration held in Munich,Germany.

Like all the other tourists, they drank large beers and ate lots of German food. But their pictures tell me something else. Their Oktoberfest was magic as well. The common element? Friends.

These girls know what friendship means. And partying.

Oktoberfest is a 16 day festival held to celebrate beer, which is specially brewed during that time.

The de Wiesn started as a celebration for the marriage of Prince Ludwig in 1810, and gradually morphed into the Autumn festival  by the 1920's. It was not celebrated during WWII, but came back after the war shortages were finally over in 1946. Since then, it has steadily grown to one of the largest parties in the world with many traditions including food, music,  clothing (lederhosen, dirndle, and Tirolerhüte) and terms (passed out drunks are called beer corpses). However big and international it gets, Oktoberfest is always about food, beer and friends. Personally, I bet it is the friends that make it so much fun.

 

Happy Oktoberfest!

Guten Tag! 

*Sadly, my pictures from the last three Oktoberfests have been eaten by faulty computers...