Even better than the real thing

You all may or may not know this, but Stuttgart has an Oktoberfest of its own. It's called the Canstatter Volksfest, and takes place at roughly the same time as Oktoberfest. Even though it's not quite as grandiose in size, it's still the second biggest beer festival in Germany, and many Germans prefer it to the "real" Oktoberfest. Probably because there are fewer tourists...

We were fortunate enough this year to attend both festivals: Oktoberfest (see below) and the Volksfest. I still think Oktoberfest is awesome for a number of reasons, but in some ways I liked the Volksfest better. For one, I didn't feel like a tourist because it was local, and second, I liked the band a lot better. They played a nice mix of traditional German festival songs and cover songs that any sorority girl would love, like "I Will Survive". The other difference was that we had a big group of people that we crammed into our one reserved table. The more the merrier is right. :)

Actually, Melissa and Vicky were also able to experience both festivals, having taken a trip to Italy after the Oktoberfest trip and stopping into Stuttgart for one night before heading home. What better way to spend your last night in Europe than at a German beer fest?

Me, Melissa, and Andy "Prosting"

Melissa, me, and our friend Rebecca
(stole this pic and the one below from Rebecca's
husbands webpage...nice pictures, Victor!)

Our friends Mike and Kathleen.
Note Mike's Lederhosen...totally upstaged us! :)

Certainly there are some things that Volksfest doesn't have, like not as many rides and not as friendly waiters (ours was a real jerk...oh well). It also doesn't have nearly the selection of beer tents. Stuttgart has 3 large tents and 6 smaller tents, while Oktoberfest has 14 large tents and 19 smaller tents. Plus some would also argue that Bavarian beer tastes better than Schwabisch beer (and I'd be inclined to agree), but I don't know how much it really matters. Most people don't come to savor the beer....they just come to drink it. :)

Clarktoberfest 2007

Ah, yes. Our annual Clarktoberfest celebration has come and gone. We are now both one year older, and one year wiser....Er, I guess that last point is debatable. At least we know more about Germany than we did one year ago--that's something!

As many of you know, we spent our birthdays this year with Andy's family on a grand German adventure known around the world as Oktoberfest. What a rush. That place is crowded! And crazy! You've all got to promise to come next year.

We started our adventure in the humbler city of Stuttgart. We mostly took it easy, taking strolls downtown, shopping, visiting the Ludwigsburg palace, going to the top of the Fernsehturm, and visiting Schwabisch restuarants for the family's mandatory introduction to Maultauschen.

The Schlossplatz in downtown Stuttgart

Andy and Melissa in front of a Schlossplatz fountainStuttgart's opera houseDuck that was fascinated with Colin's camera
Night out for Schwabisch cuisine

After a few days in Stuttgart, we hopped in a rental car, drove to Munich, found our rented apartment, dropped of our bags, and raced to our reservation in the Hippodrom tent at Oktoberfest. Phew. Once there, we had €144 in vouchers that we needed to spend (you are required to buy these to get the table reservation), so we promptly ordered a round of beers.

Round of beers at the Hippodrom

Inside the Hippodrom Tent... Big, huh?

2 1/2 hours and €100 in vouchers later, our reservation was up. Vicky and Colin wandered the fest, Andy went home (he was sick with the stomach flu our first day or so in Munich...), and Melissa and I went to the Spatenbräu tent to have some beers, sing songs, and dance.

The next morning, we came right back to the Hippodrom to use up our remaining vouchers on some traditional Oktoberfest roasted chickens and some Weisswurst, all washed down with...you guessed it, beer. We then walked around and soaked in the fest a bit.

Horses outside the Hofbräuhaus tent

Inside the Hacker-Pschorr tent

Looking out on the crowd

We went back the next night to hang out some more. We hung out in Lowenbrau's beer garden for a while before trying to get into the tent. Unfortunately, Friday night entrance without a reservation proved a bit difficult. Andy and I ended up wandering around, playing carnival games, and people watching.

Showing off the bear and rose that Andy won for me. :)

Popular Lebkuchen hearts native to every German festival
You buy them for your sweetheart, and they wear it around their neck.
Mine said: "Suße Maus"

Although we were there for some portion of every day of the trip, we didn't spend all of our time at Oktoberfest. We also went to the Deutsches Museum (largest technological museum in the world), saw the Glockenspiel clock in front of Munich's Rathaus, visited a typical German cafe for breakfast, and spent an evening at the oh-so-festive Hofbräuhaus. That place is like Oktoberfest every single day of the year: meat & potatoes, pretzels, Maß of Bier, and traditional music.

A Munich favorite: Pork Knuckle with Potato Dumplings

We also took a side trip on our last day there to Neuschwanstein, the castle of Crazy King Ludwig. It's the one that the Disney castle is based on. Very over the top and, I thought, wonderful. We actually visited two castles: Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig grew up, and Neuschwanstein, the castle Ludwig built for himself just up the hill from his childhood home. The story goes that one day, before the castle was finished, King Ludwig went to see a doctor for a check-up and was declared "unfit to rule" due to insanity (if you saw this crazy castle, you might understand why). The next day, he and the doctor were both found dead in the lake. Supposedly no one knows exactly how they died. The castle was never completed after that, but several of the rooms were finished and they are all magnificent. Gilded, and mosaic'ed, with intricate carvings and elaborate paintings. Ludwig definitely had a vivid imagination.

If you'd indulge me, I'll tell you one of my favorite parts... In Hohenschwangau, there was a bedroom that was Ludwig's father's. This father had the ceiling painted with a bright blue sky with clouds. Ludwig, upon becoming king and taking the bedroom for himself, had the sky repainted to be a night sky. He then had holes drilled from select stars all the way up to the floor above, where those holes were connected with oil lamps, so that he would see twinkles of light across the ceiling as if he was sleeping outdoors every night. I thought that was neat.

Ludwig's childhood home: Hohenschwangau

Ludwig's creative masterpiece: Neuschwanstein

So, that was our trip, in a nutshell. A very good Clarktoberfest indeed. I'll leave you with my favorite pic from the trip...something you'd only see in Germany!

Girl in a Dirndl aiming a pellet gun

Beer and pretzels for everyone!

Although we've been planning the trip for months, it seems hard to believe that we're leaving today to celebrate our annual Clarktoberfest birthday bash at the mecca of beer and pretzels: Oktoberfest in Munich. We will be thinking of all of you as we eat roasted chickens, nibble on pretzels, sing & dance, and, of course, swig liters of beer. Prost!

Ein Mass Bier:

Fun in the Sun in Lon Don

Can you believe we returned from London with tans?

So THAT's what you get when you travel somewhere in the high season.. good weather.. whodathunkit. No fear - each day found me with a better tan but much, much poorer. That's a damn expensive place to go, but what you can experience in London beyond makes up for that silly ideology we refer to as fiscal responsibility. I often come back from a trip wishing I had taken more time to learn about the area of visit, but this time I came back interested in learning more about London's history *after* the visiting. This was yet another location where you can't see everything in four long days (which we had at our disposal), and I urge anyone going to London to focus on one or two things a day with time to let it all sink in. If I'm lucky enough to have children some day, they will certainly NOT enjoy going with me on family vacations if it's to historically interesting places. I consider myself more of a Clark Griswold sort of fellow, but I'm destined to be closer to Professor Henry Jones, spending long days observing and learning like your life will someday depend upon it. A fast paced life is for the birds. Or for your reckless, treasure hunting son who calls himself Indiana.

Besides catching up with old and new friends C, J, and S, we sampled a bit of the Bitter Beer which Londoners love more than the Germans love soccer (uh, Fussball for you Deutschers), stared at obscenely decorated wonders such as the Crown Jewels and the Windsor Castle dollhouse, and tooled around the Tower of London (no, it's not really a tower), the Tate Modern art museum, and unsuccessfully tried to spook ourselves by partaking in the Jack the Ripper Night Tour.

Of course, we'd not have this opportunity without S's generosity, providing us company and a comfy bed not even a block away from the London Eye (and thus, across the bridge from Big Ben which was coooooooooooooooooooooool at night). And for those of you who don't know, the London Eye is a massive ferris wheel where each car holds some 16 people and takes 30 minutes from beginning to end! For now I'll leave you with this large London sight, and B's entrance as a great photographer.

Oktoberfest Sneak Preview

You may or may not know this, but Germany has more than just Oktoberfest in its repertoire of beer festivals. For example, here in Stuttgart there's a pretty big festival each spring in Bad Canstatt, called Fruelingsfest or Canstatter Wasen. Most people here described it to us as a mini-Oktoberfest, and if that's the truth, then I really can't wait for the real deal. It was crazy fun. Or as the Germans say, "Es war der hammer!". :)

Basically the festival is set up like a regular carnival or state fair: carnival rides, roller coasters, food stands, people challenging you to play their game and win giant stuffed animals, etc, but with the added bonus of "tents". In the tents is where potent beer is served in giant liter glasses, where a live band plays music, and where hundreds of happy patrons stand on their bench seats and sing & dance & drink all night. It was actually a little exhausting to sing and dance and drink the whole night, but hey, I guess someone's gotta do it!

The carnival part of the festival

Txema showing off his liter of beer (ein Mass)

Me taking my first swig
(note my rotated hand---it's too heavy to lift the normal way!)

Early in the night, as people started to stand on their benches for the songs

Later in the night, when everyone was standing on the benches!

Svea and Melanie singing along to our beloved "Cowboy" song
(mentioned before in this post)

Marcel, Achim, and Daniel raising their glasses for a "Prost"

Komplete Kraziness

Oh my gosh, I am in love with Köln!

We had such a great time in Köln for Karnival last weekend. That town is super fun. Everyone was friendly and happy, and there were so many fun things to do. It's a bit hard to condense all of the craziness into one post, but I'll try to give a good recap...albeit a long one!

We left Stuttgart for Köln on Friday with Shravanthi, Marjetka, and Marjetka's friend, Maya, who had driven up to Stuttgart from Slovenia the day before. We hopped on the Autobahn, and arrived in Köln 4 hours later. After checking in at the Fremdenzimmer Helga (great place to stay, by the way), we headed downtown for dinner. Since *everyone* wears costumes during Karnival, we decided to wear part of our full costume downtown...basically wigs and hats. This was a good idea, because if we hadn't we definitely would've stuck out as misfits!
As you can see, we had a bit of a theme to our costumes. Shravanthi, Marjetka, and I were "leopard girls", and Andy was our official "manager". This came in handy to have a manager when we were out dancing because he could scare off any weirdos that approached us.

Anyway, wandering the streets downtown, we came across a nice brewery, called Sünner im Walfisch, and stopped in for dinner and Kölsch. Kölsch is the official beer of Köln. It's served in small, 0,2 liter glasses, is easy to drink, and is very tasty. The Sünner brewery serves it in giant cylinders with a personal tap, like so:
At the brewery, it was so cool because it was obvious that Karnival is really all ages. The table next to us was a table of retirees, who had been there drinking Kölsch together all afternoon; they went through two 5 liter "columns" of beer while we were there. I feel like you would never see that in the US. They were so fun - singing along to songs and chatting it up. Loved it. After dinner we spent the rest of the night hopping from bar to bar and shaking our groove things on the dance floor. Super fun. On the way home, our train ride was full of tipsy, costumed people, who were happily leading the train in song. Although there were many impressive costumes, I think Broccoli Man was our favorite:
The next morning, we headed downtown, sans costumes, for some shopping (Köln is one of the fashion centers in Deutschland). Once again, it was clear that one should never leave home without a costume during Karnival. That day there was a huge party in the Neumarkt Platz, with tons of families and groups of friends all in costume. Check out this panorama to see the size of the thing!We stayed and sang a few songs at the party, and got a bit of a Karnival history run-down (auf Deutsch) from a friendly dad next to us. From there we walked to the Dom: the huge, beautiful, famous Gothic cathedral of Köln. All I can say about that is "Wow." That cathedral is too amazing to describe in words. It is so tall you can barely focus your eyes on the tips of the spires.

Standing in front of the Dom in Köln

That night we went out in "full" costume. Dressed all crazy from head-to-toe. We saw lots of funny people in costume, and of course took many pics (included in our Costume Hall of Fame, below). We danced, sang songs, people-watched, and listened to a marching band playing in the street. Another great night.

The red pouches around our necks are specially
designed to hold glasses of Kölsch. Cooooool.

The next day, Shravanthi, Marjetka, and Maya left to return to Stuttgart, and Andy and I stayed to await the arrival of Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), supposedly the biggest day of Karnival. In fact, so big, thatI think I'll have to put it in a separate post! Until that second post, feel free to browse our catalog of pics from the weekend here.

"Karnival Costume Hall of Fame"

Cool enough to deserve its own post!

**A note to the squeamish: This posting has pictures of bones!**

The Ossuary Chapel in Kutná Hora

So even though I successfully posted the Prague stories, I did leave out one little side trip we took: from Prague to Kutná Hora. Coolest tiny little town ever. Back in the day, Kutná Hora was famous for its silver mine, and was one of the wealthiest cities in all of Europe. Now its main attraction is a chapel, decorated by monks in the 14th century with the bones of 40,000 people, transforming it into an elaborate ossuary. Many of the bones are from crusaders killed during battles between the Catholics and the Hussites. Among the coolest things made out of those bones are a giant chandelier, a cross, a chalice, and a coat-of-arms. The monks hoped that the ossuary would remind visitors that life is transient and that death is the gateway into the afterlife. In addition to the artistic bone decor, there are also four large piles of bones with golden crowns at their peak to symbolize the journey towards heaven. I thought the whole place rocked! See for yourself below, or click here for the whole enchilda. ;)

Cross overhead, just after you enter the ossuary

Bone chalices decorate the entranceway

Inside, a huge chandlier hangs from the ceiling,

which includes every bone in the human body!Large coat-of-arms

Outside, the ossuary was surrounded by a cemetery (to go with the "death" theme, of course), which had some interesting tombstones, including one with a steering wheel attached. It was kind of neat too, because so many of the tombstones had black-and-white photographs on them, which made it more personal. And pretty much every single grave had flowers, or in one case even a miniature Christmas tree.

Cool tombstone with a steering wheel!

In addition to checking out the ossuary, we also enjoyed very much our visit to a local brewery, where we had a very nice lunch and some more excellent Czech beer. The beer was called Dačický, and seriously rivals my previously mentioned favorite, Velkopopovický Kozel. Unfortunately, the Kutná Hora beer is only available in Kutná Hora, so you'll just have to hop on over to the Czech Republic and taste for yourself how good it is.

The Dačický Brewery

On the way back to Prague with our driver, Vladmir