Musings from an overworked translator

Oktoberfest! September 19, 2008

Thank goodness it’s Friday, and I’m taking a road trip to Cincinnati for the Zinzinnati Oktoberfest, which is proclaimed to be the world’s second largest celebration of Prince Ludwig’s wedding by the Guinness Book of Records. Having attended the Oktoberfest in Munich in 1997, I look forward to comparing the two. Hopefully there will be fewer drunk Italians in Cincinnati – although I have a feeling there will be just as many drunk Americans there. 🙂

The history of Oktoberfest dates back to the year 1820 when Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig I decided to marry Saxony Princess Therese and organized a great holiday on the 12th of October. He invited all the residents of the city to join the celebration. The holiday was repeated at the same date the following year, and very soon it became a tradition.

The most common question I usually get asked is why Oktoberfest is celebrated in September. The date of the festival was changed near the end of the 19th century so it can be celebrated while it is still warm out. The Munich Oktoberfest takes place during the sixteen days up to and including the first Sunday in October. It is one of the most famous events in the city and the world’s largest fair, with some six million people attending every year, and is an important part of Bavarian culture. Bavarians and lots of foreign guests drink about 6 million liters of beer, consume approx. 1 million chickens, approx. 400 thousand wurst and sausages and other local cuisine, such as Käsespätzle (spaetzel mixed with melted cheese and onions), roast ox tail, and Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes). Thirty percent of all the beer produced by Bavarian breweries is consumed during this festival.

The Oktoberfest is a lot more than just eating and drinking. You may be surprised to hear that there are lots of amusement park rides and souvenir vendors as well. There are currently fourteen main tents at the Oktoberfest. The tents themselves are non-permanent structures that are constructed for and only used during the festival. The beer (or wine or champagne) served in each is brought to an accompanying table by women in Dirndl (traditional Bavarian dress). These women can carry up to 12 heavy Maßkrüge (a Maßkrug (aka Maß) is a 1-liter beer mug, plural: Maßkrüge) at once. It’s amazing. Seating can be hard to come by, because many people reserve space in tents up to a year in advance. More than 6 million people come to the Oktoberfest, and there are only about 100,000 available seats. If you want a seat, come a little later in the day or try your luck in one of the tents without a line, like the Spaten or Hippodrom tents.

You should fight the urge to take one of the Maßkrug home with you. The Maßkrüge are made from heavy glass – really heavy glass so they are not a good souvenir for backpackers! – and typically have a decorative brewery logo on the side, making them very popular souvenirs among visitors. Although it is strictly forbidden to steal the mugs, they can be purchased in the tents at a “reasonable” price. Buyers are strongly advised to keep the receipts because police are known to search them for stolen mugs even away from the fest area. When police catch someone stealing a mug, the thieves may be fined up to €50. There is also a general Oktoberfest souvenir mug that features that year’s Oktoberfest poster. This one is made of clay instead of glass and is available with a tin lid.

For those of you heading to the Oktoberfest in Munich, here is a fun little Wiesn dictionary for you. I’ll miss the tapping in Cincinnati, but in just a few hours many people will be hearing O’zapft is! (it’s tapped!) in Munich.

9/22/08: For photos of our weekend at the Zinzinnati Oktoberfest, click here! Unfortunately, the sausage in Cincinnati is sadly lacking. They consider Weisswurst to be a Brat and sell something called Mett, which is nothing like the Mettwurst I am familiar with in Germany. German Mett is raw minced pork and is usually served on bread rolls (Mettbrötchen) or sliced bread, frequently with a garnish of raw onion rings or diced. Not my cup of tea, but my sister loved it. Cincinnati’s Mett is more like a kielbasa. The pastries like Bienenstich, chocolate mousse cake or Schmidt’s Jumbo Cream Puffs were to die for though! And of course the beer was awesome! One gem is the Hofbräuhaus in Newport, just across the river. I felt like I was at my favorite beer garden in Germany (Schaumburger Hof). There were even real Germans there 🙂 It’s an absolute must for German culture fans! I’ll definitely be back!

Germany in the news – and not in a good way August 12, 2008

Four people were killed in a German ice cream parlor in Russelheim today. That is just sad. It seems as if Germany is catching up with America in senseless killing and random shootings. If you ask me, German ice cream parlors stand for all that is good in the world. There is nothing quite like a German Eisbecher (ice cream sundae), a wonderful concoction of ice cream, fruit, chocolate, and (if you are lucky) alcohol. The German ice cream parlors have taken creative ice cream concoctions to a new level. This is exemplified by a simple Spaghettieis, which looks like a plate of spaghetti in which vanilla ice cream is pressed through a modified spaetzle maker to make it look like spaghetti, placed over whipped cream and topped with strawberry sauce (to simulate tomato sauce) and either coconut flakes, grated almonds, or white chocolate shavings to represent parmesan cheese. Or the After Eight Becher with vanilla and peppermint ice cream topped with whipped cream, mint liquor, and After Eight mints. Nothing beats the fancy ice cream sundaes that combine fruit, alcohol and ice cream. To see how wonderful these creations can be, click here. Yum. Anyway, the shootings southwest of Frankfurt have shocked the country. CNN intimates that it may be related to a shooting blamed on an organized crime syndicate based in the southern Italian region of Calabria. This may not be such a stretch since most ice cream parlors in Germany are seasonal and run by Italians.

And then there is the Rockefeller wannabe calling himself “Clark Rockefeller” who kidnapped his daughter, is a “person of interest” in the disappearance of a California couple, and may be a missing German man who left Germany as a teenager and broke off contact with his family 20 years ago. Authorities are fairly confident that “Rockefeller” may in fact be Christian Gerhartsreiter, who was an exchange student in Connecticut in 1980 under the name Christian Gerhart Reiter when he was 17. I have been following this case closely, because he reminds me of someone in Germany I used to know. Absolutely crazy.

I guess Americans don’t have a lock on weird and disturbing crimes…

“Coffee to go” July 16, 2008

There’s a very disturbing article about how European cafés are disappearing as Europeans are adapting to American trends in this week’s edition of the Expatica Germany newsletter. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Expatica is Europe’s leading lifestyle portal for internationals living abroad and they break the site down into the various countries with lots of country-specific tips about living abroad, numerous resources, information on expat life, etc.

“Coffee to go” the cry as Europe adapts to American trends reports that “the times when people would spend hours reading newspapers or indulge in deep conservation in Berlin while sipping endless coffees is somewhat seldom nowadays, partly due to faster-paced life trends, and soaring cafe rents.” It then goes on to discuss how Starbucks and coffee bars are replacing older, more relaxed coffee houses in many European capitals.

I find this trend sad, because I enjoyed many hours drinking coffee (ah, the simple pleasure of a Milchkaffee…) and enjoying homemade Kuchen or a nice brunch at cafés like Café Sacher in Vienna, Café Tomaselli in Salzburg, and my favorite café in Bonn – Bonngout. I’m sure cafés won’t totally disappear, but I find it very sad that Europeans are giving in to the American fast-paced life. That was one of the things I enjoyed most about living in Europe – things were more relaxed and slow-paced.

The joy of a mid-day off June 19, 2008

One of the joys of freelancing is the ability to take time off whenever you want. After practically burning myself out translating a really term-dense medical assessment, which I delivered last night, I decided to take the early afternoon off to run errands and treat myself. I have a couple jobs on my desk, but they are all pretty manageable. I had to pick up my Father’s Day gift, a print of Cleveland my dad picked out on my laptop (I love the Internet!), so I made a list of all the things I needed to get done and spent a few hours driving around town and into downtown Cleveland. I got a little side-tracked (ok, lost) and drove through an extremely dodgy part of town (East Cleveland, which is the foreclosure capital of the world) on my way downtown. The Plain Dealer wrote an article on the situation in East Cleveland this week – little did I know I would be driving through that exact part of town just two days later. It was interesting seeing all the once-beautiful homes in a terrible state of disrepair. Some of the homes must have been breathtaking in their day.

I hit the local German import store, Hansa Import Haus, to stock up on Jacobs Krönung coffee and ended up buying some Lindt and Ritter chocolates, cheese, jam, good German bread, and several kinds of beer (since it’s summer I’ve decided to try Warsteiner’s new line of Radlers – beer mixed with lemon, orange and/or cola flavoring). I look forward to trying them on my balcony. Having lived in Salzburg, I am a big fan of the Radler and the Almdudler (which tastes a bit like ginger ale). Afterward, I treated myself to a nice café au lait, Perrier, Niçoise salad, and a strawberry crepe at a little French bistro and creperie, Le Petit Triangle Café (formerly known as Le Oui Oui Café) down the street from Hansa Haus.

I ran a couple other errands and stopped at the local library to pick up a book I ordered through Search Ohio and to browse their DVD collection. Now I am home, refreshed and ready to devote myself a marketing survey. But it definitely feels like a Friday…