So, let me ask you: what do you like to do with your 'downtime'? Does standing around in lederhosen (think bib-overalls in leather, with the legs cropped), sinking vast quantities of beer and wolfing a huge variety of sausages and pretzels sound good? All done to the accompaniment of brass-bands playing oompah-music at ear-shattering volume?
Then you'll love Munich's annual Oktoberfest, a party devoted to just those things. I went in the early 1980s but my memory of the event is (unsurprisingly) a little hazy. I vaguely remember beer; a lot of beer.
According to wikipedia, Oktoberfest is the world's largest funfair. In 2013, 6.4 million people attended and the festival served 6.7 million liters of beer. That is a lot of suds. And they require a lot of pretzels to soak them up.
Sadly, unless a pay dispute with the bakers union is resolved, pretzels and other baked goods will be off the menu at this year's festivities...leaving just beer, sausages, oompah-music and leather hot-pants.
According to Agence France-Presse in Berlin:
“If we don’t get any further by mid-September, we’ll strike in the bakeries,” Focus news magazine quoted deputy regional president of the NGG gastronomy union Mustafa Oz as saying, in its Monday edition.
“Then there’ll be a lack of pretzels and bread rolls” at the Oktoberfest, he added.
The union is negotiating on behalf of 48,000 employees of the bakery sector in southern Bavaria state but so far the proposals by employers have fallen far short of their call for a 6.5-percent wage hike.
Let's wish the bakers well. I hope they get their pay-rise and festival-goers get their pretzels.
Prosit!