It’s officially on! The Oktoberfest has started in Munich this past weekend.
Have you watched or perhaps even been part of the traditional opening ceremony? It’s always a fun event, starting with the Grand Entry Parade with the Oktoberfest landlords and their festive horse carriages loaded with beer barrels to the entertaining procession of the various costume groups, historic riflemen, flag throwers and many other performers … all on their way to the famous Oktoberfest grounds at the Theresienwiese.
Oktoberfest has come a long way since the day when Bavaria celebrated the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig in October of 1810. Today, you can consider it almost a worldwide event in the sense that you can find and celebrate at some Oktoberfest near you almost anywhere you are on the globe. In the U.S. alone, there are plenty of them you can attend with the largest one in Cincinnati according to Wikipedia. The list is explosively expanding every year.
Many of the ‘Oktoberfests‘ in California listed in our last year’s post are still happening this year with many new ones popping out all over. In fact, the media is full of suggestions of where to go (Bay Area Events & SoCal Events ), so we didn’t dedicate a separate post to all the listings this year.
However, we’d like to highlight very traditional ones, which have been known to be in California for a long time.
One of them is the Oktoberfest at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim, which has put on an Oktoberfest for more than 55 years! This year they started out their festivities right at the same time as the original Oktoberfest in Munich, on September 21st.
You can celebrate Oktoberfest at the Phoenix Club every weekend until October 28th, and starting on October 7th – you can enjoy a delicious German Sunday brunch just before you dive into the rest of the fun. End your Oktoberfest outing with a hearty meal and a large ‘Mass’ at their beer garden. Check out their website for more information.
Oans, zwoa, g’suffa! Prost!
Images: Pixabay.com
Ilka, a gifted educator, who immigrated to the United States from Wiesbaden 29 years ago, has become indispensable for families of the German community in and around Los Angeles. Parents love her for creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere for their children while being immersed in the German language and learning all about German traditions as well. 
