Cannstatter Volksfest 2014

Last year we went to Cannstatter Volksfest (AKA Oktoberfest) in Stuttgart with some friends and had an absolute blast. Josh had declared it to be his favorite festival, and he wanted to go back this year. We have two friends who are affected by the force reductions, and they are both being forcibly retired. One of these friends will be staying in Germany, but the other will be returning to the states. We have been trying to do extra things with our friend who is leaving to cram in as many experiences as possible in the time he has left. It was determined that Stuttgart was going to be one of the must-do experiences for our friend before he left.

We learned a few things from our trip last year. Our friends had tent tickets, which guaranteed us a place at a table with a reserved seat. The tickets also included a certain amount of beer and a chicken dinner. Having tickets was an awesome advantage. We knew we would want tickets. When we went to Stuttgart last year, we were there on a Sunday. It was less busy, which was nice, but we had to leave around dinner time to drive back home... and well, getting up for work Monday morning wasn't exactly easy or fun. So, we knew we needed to get tickets, and we needed to go on a Saturday. Our group of friends agreed upon a weekend for our trip. I had the task of ordering tent tickets, and our other friend made us a hotel reservation. We were ready!

Josh and I usually travel alone... partly because I like to plan things how I want them, and it is difficult to accommodate other people's schedules/timelines. We also don't have too many friends who have similar life situations, and well, for two people with an open budget and plenty of time off with no kids... not everyone has that. It is hard to coordinate with people who do have different time schedules or a large family, as we travel completely differently.  I also like to travel alone because I am an on-time person, and I start to go crazy if people make me late. This trip was a bit of a reminder of that...

Friday night our friends showed up at our house, and everyone was spending the night. We were planning to leave early the next morning, and we decided the easiest thing would be for all of us to be in one place. Our plan was to drive to our hotel, park the car, get into our get-ups, then take the train to the fest. I had figured to give us enough time to do all of this, we would need to leave our house by 6 am. That morning we were all a bit slow moving and we were taking our time, so we weren't out the door until about 6:45 am. I was a little irritated and a bit stressed about our time, but I told myself to relax, it would all work out. The drive was pretty uneventful. We arrived in Stuttgart and according to the GPS we were approaching our hotel (right on time, I may add). But, as it turned out... it wasn't our hotel. The wrong information was put in the GPS, and when we put in the new information, it said it would be another 40 minutes before we reached our hotel. At this point in time, I was looking at the clock... our reservation was for 11:00. The tent will only hold your reservation for 15 minutes, otherwise they will give up your table to someone else. It was 10:15. I knew there was no way we could get to our hotel, then catch the train to the fest. No. Way. At this point I'm pretty sure I was having a minor panic attack and steam was starting to billow out of my ears. I frequently try to remind myself not everyone runs on a time schedule, and even if we aren't on my time schedule, things will still be okay... but this was a time it wasn't going to be okay. We were, indeed, going to be late. Garrrrrrrrr. Luckily, one of our friends was having a similar freak out (so it wasn't just me). We decided instead of going to the hotel, we would find a parking spot near the fest and we could leave the car overnight and take the train back to get it in the morning. It took us awhile to find anywhere where there was a free parking space... but we did finally find a parking garage. After parking the car we needed to get dressed. When we left our house, we had all decided it wouldn't be comfortable to sit in the car for three hours wearing dirndls and lederhosen. It turns out it is also not comfortable to strip down in the middle of a busy parking garage to change into your dirndl in front of strangers. It helps if your give-a-shit is broken.

After all the stress and drama, we made it to the fest and to our table only five minutes late. I was even more grateful we had tickets as we approached our tent. There was a line which stretched out the door and around the building, but since we had tickets, we by-passed the line and were led right to our table. Let the fun begin!

Cannstatter Volksfest is basically Stuttgart's version of Oktoberfest. Read: beer. I don't think I need to explain much more of our afternoon. The pictures speak for themselves.

 I think that is enough embarrassment for my mother and myself... Even though it had a rocky start, Stuttgart turned out to be a lot of fun. We are hoping for a repeat next year!!