Oktoberfest!

Once again, another fun weekend, courtesy of Chief Grad Student. Oktoberfest is actually a big thing here in the K-W area: it was largely settled by German immigrants, and Kitchener used to be called "Berlin" before World War I provoked a rather forced name change.

One of the big Oktoberfest arenas is the Concordia Club--most of the year, it's a German social club, but during Oktoberfest, they set up a tent that can hold around 4000 people, sell loads of beer, sausage, and cabbage rolls, and have some blasting live music.

I've never been to an Oktoberfest before, but after this first one, I realize that it's conceptually similar to Saint Patrick's Day. It's an annual opportunity to use one's heritage (or, ahem, somebody else's heritage) to get seriously plastered (signal to drink is the crowd yelling in unison, "Eins! Zwei! Drei! G'suffa!"). Hey--I see no problem with that at all; there's never a reason to deny anyone an excuse to drink. I'm just afraid that if there was ever a Japanese heritage drinking holiday, it would celebrate just-in-time delivery and corporate loyalty.

They were selling all sorts of souvenirs--buttons, t-shirts, Austrian hats with feathers, and lederhosen. Hey--I was considering lederhosen, but I was wondering--when else would leather shorts honestly come in handy? Nah... I don't think I'm going to try answering that question. My apologies if you ended up with the mental image of me in dressed in lederhosen from this discussion.

But back on the music, it was a bit disconcerting to hear the Black Forest Band (a.k.a. "Canada's Premier Polka Band"--see photo above) belting out pretty credible versions of "I'm Walkin' on Sunshine" and "Brown Eyed Girl." Not the polka version à la Weird Al, but straight up.

As for the morning-after hangover report: no worries. Lots of rehydration, some fruit juice, and a few Tylenol got me functional in the morning without a problem.