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A few weeks ago I was riding my bike across the Theresienwiese when I noticed yet another fair being set up at the far end. I pootled over to get a closer look.

I didn’t have to wonder long before I figured out what event was coming up…

Frühlingsfest! Aka Munich’s Spring Festival. How exciting. It opened a few days after we got back from Amsterdam, so we went over in the evening to check it out.

It was mostly your basic midway amusement park with rides, games, and food stalls.

However, it also had two of the big festival beer tents! (By comparison, Oktoberfest has fourteen.) The Augustiner Festhalle was super popular with a large crowd waiting to get in.

I was delighted to see how many young people were wearing their Tracht. Tracht refers to the traditional folk costumes worn in German-speaking regions (mostly in Bavaria, Tyrol, and Austria). For men it’s mainly lederhosen, and for women it’s dirndls.

While I was marvelling at the outfits, something caught my eye in the distance. “Does that… say… Beer Carousel????”

Indeed it did. “Bierkarussell.” An honest-to-goodness rotating beer carousel. We knew we were going to have to try it out, but we needed to line our stomachs first.

How about a half-meter bratwurst? Perfect. Okay, now back to the beer.

The Bierkarussell looks like a traditional carousel, except there are no horses and there’s a circular bar in the middle. The patrons stand around the edges and it rotates very slowly around and around. We went for the full “Maß” (1 liter) of Helles (lager).

The rotating was making me a bit dizzy, so eventually we stepped off and found a spot on the side to stand and drink our beers. A very happy drunk Bavarian guy toasted us every time he came past. It was hilarious.

The very next day I spotted an email from the local Democrats Abroad Munich chapter inviting us to join them in the Hippodrom tent for Bavarian-American Friendship Day. I immediately reserved two seats. Of course, if we were going to party in a festival tent, we were going to need our own Tracht…

I had previously waffled on whether to buy Tracht. It’s an actual folk costume, and I wondered whether it would be cultural appropriation. (Neither of us have German ancestry.) I asked a couple locals though, who said that it was absolutely fine. The only rule they mentioned was to NOT buy the crappy shiny Halloween costume versions they sell in the cheap shops near the Hauptbahnhof to the tourists. Instead we went to Trachten Rausch, not far from where we live. They were pretty busy with folks buying outfits for Frühlingfest, but within minutes we each had a guy pulling stuff off the racks for us to try on. I got a pink dindl with an apron and blouse, and the Snook got lederhosen, a checked shirt, and knit socks. (Each outfit ran us around €200.)

And then it was time for the big day! We got dressed up and made our way to the Hippodrom. Holy moly – it was overwhelming. A band was playing and thousands of people were eating dinner and gulping down giant steins of beer.

We found the Democrats Abroad tables pretty quickly. It turns out that many of the tables at the front of the room were for various American expat groups.

The tent was so big they had a screen so people in the back could see the stage. (As you can see, not everybody was wearing Tracht.)

Karena took a photo of the Snook and me in all our Tracht glory…

We settled in and pretty soon we flagged down a server for some beers. PROST! 🍻

The evening kicked off properly with a lovely speech from United States Consul General Timothy Liston in honour of Bavarian-American Friendship Day. He wore Tracht too!

We were enjoying ourselves a lot!

The band were mostly playing classic pub rock covers (in English), but I’m not sure if that was special because of the day. Maybe normally it’s all Schlager? At any rate, they were awesome. We learned very quickly that every 20 minutes or so the singer would yell “Die Krüge hoch” and everyone would raise their glasses and sing a little drinking song…

It’s called “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit,” and it means “a toast to well-being.” It’s followed by a count to three and then “DRINK!”

With all that beer, it was time for some food.

The Snook went for the roast pork with dumpings, while I went with meatballs and sauerkraut. I find it frankly astonishing that they manage to have table service in such a huge place. And there’s no credit cards – it’s all cash. (Note to self: Write an Ocean’s 11-style heist movie where a daring band of criminals knocks over multiple Oktoberfest tents in one night!)

We each had a second Maß of beer, and that’s when everybody started to really cut loose. People were up on the benches dancing and singing along to the band. My phone is full of videos of us acting like idiots and belting out Neil Diamond and ABBA songs. As I’m sure YouTube would flag those as copyright violation, instead you get a photo of the Snook and a couple dudes’ bums. 😂

Here we are at the end of the night. Yeah, that was a good time!

Thanks to the Democrats Abroad for hosting us! Now we’re just counting down the days until Oktoberfest and we can break out the Tracht again… ❤️

With the four-day Easter weekend looming, we were trying to decide on a city to visit. “There’s a sleeper train to Amsterdam!” the Snook offered. That settled it. Amsterdam had long been on our list of cities to visit (I have a bucket list goal of hitting every one mentioned in Paul Kelly’s ode to Aussies in Europe), and I’ve always wanted to ride in a sleeper train. Time to visit the Netherlands!

The train – and I am not kidding – is the NightJet NJ420 from Innsbruck to Amsterdam. It has normal carriage cars, and then a couple in the middle that are the sleepers (“Schlafwagens”).

We were greeted by a porter who led us down a very narrow hallway to our cabin.

It was about 10:30pm when we boarded the train in Munich, so the porter had already set it up for sleeping. There were two bunks, but theoretically there’s a third one that can fold down if needed.

Can you tell how excited I am? The first thing we needed to do was select our options for breakfast in the morning and give the bits of paper to the porter.

There is a tiny sink crammed into the corner where you could clean your teeth, but the bathroom was a shared one down the carriage. (Unfortunately there was a problem with the water on this journey, so the sink wasn’t working.)

The train pulled out of Munich, and we kicked off our shoes to relax a bit. There was a bag on each bunk with slippers, a bottle of water, a snack, and some sparkling wine. The Snook had also cleverly brought a couple mini bottles of Schnapps…

Prost! We eventually decided it was time to go to sleep. I claimed the bottom bunk so the Snook clambered up the ladder to his berth.

In terms of sleeping comfort, the bunks were just long enough that I could stretch out (I’m 5’10”, 178cm) but anybody taller would be a little cramped. The mattresses weren’t super thick, but for me the bigger issue was the pillows were very, very thin. Still, I did eventually fall asleep. The train does make a few stops during the night and the carriages aren’t soundproof, but I had my headphones playing white noise and it didn’t bother me. The biggest challenge was that since we were lying perpendicular to the train’s movement, whenever it would brake or accelerate you’d feel it. (That’s why the upper bunk has a net, to keep the Snook from rolling right out onto the floor!) Still, the sleeper was nicer than I expected and I definitely got more sleep than I ever have on a long haul flight.

In the morning we opened the window to find ourselves rolling through the Dutch countryside. The porter came by to help us fold up the beds and fold down a table for our breakfast.

We pulled into Amsterdam at 10:30am, blinking in the sunlight and still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Time to find our hotel…

We had left the booking until pretty late so the only place we could get a room was the fancy Marriott W. It wasn’t too far so we had a 15min walk through Amsterdam to get there. It’s actually two buildings across the street from each other, and we were in the “Exchange” building. Reception is up at the roof level, and there’s a pretty spectacular view from the terrace.

The building on the right there is the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, and the brick one on the left is the Magna Plaza, formerly the main post office of Amsterdam and now a shopping mall.

That’s the view up Raadhuisstraat, which crosses several canals. You can see the Westerkerk church spire in the distance.

Our room wasn’t ready yet so we made our plans to explore the city. We decided to skip the museums and cannabis cafes on this trip, instead spending as much time as possible outside in the glorious Spring weather.

The Royal Palace from ground level. It was originally built as the Town Hall of Amsterdam but was converted into a palace in the 19th century. It’s where Queen Beatrix was announced to the Dutch people in 1980.

Here’s the Snook in Dam Square, one of the most well-known spots in the city. That’s the National Monument in the distance.

This is the Beurs van Berlage building, which the Snook really liked. I think it was the clock.

This is the Oude Kerk (“Old Church”), Amsterdam’s oldest building. Rembrandt was a frequent visitor to the Oude Kerk and his children were all christened here.

Canal!! This is the view from the Oudekerksbrug (“Old Church Bridge”).

This is looking north towards the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, the city’s primary Catholic Church.

I was entranced by the canals of Amsterdam. There are more than 100km of them (62mi), with 1500 bridges in the city.

You know what else I was entranced by? CHEESE.

This is actually the Amstel river as seen from the Blauwbrug (“Blue Bridge”). There are a LOT of houseboats in Amsterdam. There were also a lot of river cruises going up and down the river and canals too.

We walked up the Kalverstraat, Amsterdam’s main shopping street. (Fun trivia: it’s the most expensive property on Dutch Monopoly!) There was a queue out the door at Van Holland Stroopwafels, and we made a mental note to come back later for treats.

The LEGO Store had a massive working windmill in the window!

More canal action! Everybody was out enjoying the Easter weekend Spring weather.

Get ready – you’re going to see a lot of tulips! There were blooming planters all over the city.

After lunch, we headed back to our hotel for a nap and shower. Then it was time to go out and meet my Amazonian colleague Anshu!

Anshu moved from Melbourne last year, so he volunteered to show us around Amsterdam. The first place he took us was Wynand Fockink, a distillery tasting room straight out of the 17th century.

We stood in the crowd and waited our turn to get to the front. They had more than 50 different liqueurs, including jenever (the Dutch precursor to gin). The attendant explained all about jenever to us and gave us a taste, and then we picked out a couple brandies to try. (I went with cherry; the Snook with sloe.) The tiny glasses are filled right up to the brim, and you’re meant to bow down to slurp the first sip out of them. Fun!

Our next stop was a Dutch craft beer bar called the Arendsnest, along one of the canals. We sat outside and enjoyed some excellent brews as the sun got lower in the sky.

Our final stop of the night was Bierfabriek Amsterdam, a brewery and restaurant right in the city. It was crowded by they found us a table tucked in the corner. Their specialty is “rustic slow roasted French farm chicken,” and who could resist that?

We said our goodbyes to Anshu and headed back to the hotel to rest up ahead of a very big Easter Sunday…

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