Favorite {Photo} Friday! #17

At this very moment on the other side of the globe thousands of people are drinking enormous steins of beer and eating cheese and bacon pretzels and reveling in Germanness. Two years ago, I was, too:


I'm mostly German and Norwegian. There are some other bits in there, too, but the heritages that I grew up with--in certain ways, anyway--are those two. A tiny town near my hometown in Oregon celebrates Oktoberfest every year and some of my fondest childhood memories are from Mt. Angel's Oktoberfest. I had a friend, Alison, who lived in town there and I would go stay with her for the weekend. Her uncle seemed to be in charge of the Volunteer Firemen's booth which sold--glory of glories--strawberry shortcake. The homemade kind, not that prepackaged foam cake crap kind. So as kids we would volunteer to work in the booth in exchange for a bunch of deserts, which we would then take around to the other booths and exchange for their food (in addition to the strawberry shortcakes we would eat, of course!). Pretty good deal, if you ask me! Sausages and sauerkraut and pretzels and oh my goodness, I love German food. Then we'd work off those calories by running around town completely free. Mt Angel is so small and Alison's family is so big that she was related to half the town it seemed, so we would leave her house in the morning and spend the day running around and working and eating ourselves silly and running around some more and Polka-dancing until midnight and then we'd return to her house, crash into bed, and wake up and do it all over again, rarely reporting in to adults other than happening to bump into her aunts and uncles and cousins and parents. It was heaven. I have fond, fond memories and Oktoberfest has a big ol' chunk of my heart.

Anyway, we were living in Italy in 2006 and our friends Nikki and Joe decided they were driving up to Munich for a weekend for the original Oktoberfest. Jason and I are great at jumping onto other people's plans so we decided to all go together. Oh did we have fun! I especially loved that they served dark beer in the tents; Nikki and I would share because neither of us drank fast enough to get to the bottom of a liter before it was warm. Jason and Joe did not have the same problem, hence those hats. :P Outside every "tent"--which is really not at all tent-like except for the roof--were carts selling the most amazing pretzels. Cheese and bacon pretzels... oh my goodness I don't think there is a more perfect food. Cheesy salty bacony carbs? Does it get any better? I don't think so. I truly don't.

The great thing about Nikki and Joe is that they are exactly like me and Jason. Joe would be obnoxious and Jason and I thought it was hilarious while Nikki was, as his wife, annoyed as all get out. Jason would be obnoxious and Nikki and Joe thought it was hilarious while I, as his wife, was annoyed as all get out. Funny how that works, huh? :) Somehow this balanced us all out and we ended up laughing instead of being annoyed which is a miracle considering how much beer was consumed and therefore how obnoxious the boys were.

All in all it was a great weekend. We saw a lot of Munich, found an amazing outdoor market, got into most of the different beer tents (they fill up so you often can't get into them), ate some glorious food, and laughed and laughed and laughed and made some great memories. Perfect!

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Today I am running around picking up some organizational supplies because I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet--DANIELE IS COMING TO VISIT US!!!! He and girlfriend Mary arrive next Wednesday into Philly; I'm driving up to pick them up and we'll stay with friends John and Amy for a couple days before heading back here. So my butt has been officially kicked into gear to finish up a few things around the house; I'm finally organizing my studio. More importantly, I just can't tell you how excited I am to see Dani.

Have a great weekend! :)