Had we brought our steins, we would have raised them to the plucky participants of Cedarburg’s Oktoberfest. Neither rain, nor wind, nor invasion by Polish/Croatian interlopers kept them from their appointed rounds.
Prost!
We wandered into the main tent on a soggy Saturday afternoon just in time for the Pommersche Tanzdeel Freistadt dancers (and, fortunately, too late for the German spelling bee).
While teams of volunteers armed with buckets and large poles kept rainwater from pooling on the tents, the dancers put on quite a show. All around us, folks fortified themselves with all manner of German sausages, sauerkraut, red cabbage, wiener schnitzel, Bavarian pretzels with cheese and good German beer.
Later, inspired by the spectacle, one carbo-loaded, lederhosen-wearing gent swung his fraulein so enthusiastically onto the dance floor that they ended up outside the tent, schuhplattlering in the rain.
Eins! Zwei! Polizei!
Then, at the stroke of two, the human glockenspiel emerged and I’d never seen time marked quite so amusingly.
Many thanks to Cedarburg, for generating the spirit of gemuetlichkeit and brightening up a dreary Saturday in a festive, German way.
Auf wiedersehen! (And next year, I’m coming hungry!)
Muchas gracias. Great photos, and a new word.