Canstatter Volksfest

Some of you might be aware that Stuttgart has the second largest beer festival in the world, right after Munich's "Oktoberfest". The Canstatter Volksfest started this weekend, so Nate and I went down to check it out. Actually, we were invited by some of Nate's coworkers to join them at one of the beer tents for the evening (there are four big beer tents, serving four different types of Stuttgart beer).

We got there ten minutes late, so instead of getting in the "reserved" entrance we had to wait with all of the other impatient Germans outside the tent. We pushed and shoved our way in about an hour later.

It was, literally, 5:00 in the afternoon and the tent was packed. A band was playing and people were already standing up on their seats, dancing away.

Nate and I each got a "Mass", which is a one liter glass of beer. And, (cough), it only took us the whole night to drink our very own. Well, it is a lot of beer!!!!

We had a lot of fun, meeting new people, and pretending to understand the German songs. They played a few English songs, but I only knew one or two of them. For example, they played a very rousing version of John Denver's "Country Roads". And, for you younger folks, they played that Moulin Rouge song from a few years back.

We left around 8:30, got home around 9:00, and decided that we really aren't wild party animals. However, we did have a great time. It had been a while since I'd danced on a table, and I think it was a first for Nate. Welcome to Germany!!!

[Pictures from my parent's visit are up on my Kodak Gallery page. If you are having trouble accessing them, it may be that you have a corrupted version of the page stored in your "cache". Here's a way to fix it if you use Internet Explorer. If you use another web browser, let me know and I can e-mail you instructions to fix the problem:

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. Click "Tools" and select "Internet Options".
3. Under "Temporary Internet Files choose "Delete Files".

If this does not fix the problem, delete your temporary Internet files (clear your cache) again and then choose "Delete Cookies" (Internet Explorer 6.0 and later).]