Oktoberfest

When my boyfriend sent me a link to Paris’ first ever Oktoberfest, I was more than willing to let him buy us tickets to go and check it out. What could be a better way to spend a Saturday night than to drink litres of beer at a traditional Bavarian drinking festival? Last night we attended the said event and I was not prepared for what would ensue.

Arriving slightly later than planned (might have been my fault…) we managed to find our table. We were right in front of the stage. We had a prime location to watch the crazy German band that had already started. Their repertoire consisted of cheesy English songs translated into German. Have you ever heard Cotton Eyed Joe sung in German? I have. It was wonderful. After we had order a selection of sausages and two litres of beer we were ready to enjoy the frivolities. From the other people on our table constantly wanting to clink glasses to the band making everyone down their drinks at least once every half hour it started to get rather rowdy. I even had to stand on the bench in order to see, which incidentally reminded me quite a lot of their uncomfortable counterparts I’m used to from Scout camps.

The start of the Bavarian CanCan certainly heralded the moment the evening started to get lary. There we were drinking enormous glasses of beer that I could hardly lift let alone drink and the band refusing to speak anything but German (that A Level came in handy, well slightly) it was a cacophony of loud music and drunken singing with a slight bit of absolute bewilderment. But I would recommend it to anyone even though it was strange to be sat in a massive marquee with 300 or so other people on a weird kind of industrial estate at the edge of Paris. So who’s up for booking a booth together next year?