On Saturday night Mr. Orovan, Mr. Scott, and myself visited Munich’s Frühlingsfest (spring festival). The festival is “family friendly” and had a large number of rides, skill games, food stands, and other ways to spend your money. It also had a couple of beer halls/tents.
I was actually quite surprised to see all of the rides. And they were mostly cheesy rides, like ones you would find at the old Lake Ontario Park or Kingston Family Funworld. Bumper cars, tea cups, big swings are examples of the rides we saw. One ride was particularly interesting to us: a “big splash” water ride. This ride was Canadian themed, complete with Canadian flags, a lumberjack operator, and a Canadian mural.
Not even the Canadian themed ride could convince us to part with our Euros, so we made our way into one of the beer halls. The building was packed with people; half of the people were standing on their tables dancing to the remixed-dance music, while the other half were crammed into their tables with 1L beer glasses in hand. I remember hearing a Eurodance version of Cotton-Eyed Joe (possibly the Rednex version). We surveyed the hall to find a place to sit, but ended up leaving due to a lack of vacancy. Also, they required us to throw out our carton of milk before entering.
We found another beer garden with a beer hall that was not quite as busy. As a bonus it had more traditional music, including a live band. The band would play a song or two, then take a break for a drink before playing another couple of songs. The band included the use of the giant wooden horn that you stereotypically associate with old German music, and of course were wearing lederhosen. Here we consumed some chicken, obatzter, and a giant pretzel…not to mention the few litres of beer that Orovan and Scott put down.
When we left the hall, the rides that previously appeared childish were suddenly very appealing. In particular a frisbee ride caught our attention (named Goetzke). We went on this ride twice–the second time being the last ride of the night. Between rides we went for a spin on a small go-kart track, which was particularly humorous given the amount of beer consumed. We were surprised that no restraints or helmets were used.
We left the festival when it shut down, just before midnight, concluding a full and exciting day in Munich.