Dresdner Stadtfest

There was a festival called the Dresdner Stadtfest on August 17-19, which translates to Dresden City Festival, I guess. It wasn't something like Bunte Republik Neustadt, but it was still a lot of fun. I saw a little bit of it on Friday night, but it wasn't really too interesting for me. But I did get some good night shots.

You can see the beer stands and the bratwurst stands lined up along the road across the river. Dresden is a very picturesque city.

In the distance you can see that the brilliant German engineers have figured out how to make a hot air balloon look like a box of beer.

This is the square at Theatreplatz where the Semperoper is. It's completely covered in beer stands.

More beer stands... The Semperoper in the background.

This bridge was shutdown to all car and tram traffic. It was packed all weekend...

This is a good example of how Canadian/US culture and German culture differ. The VVO, which is the regional transit company (like the GO train in Ontario), had all these information booths and promotional things setup for this festival. And as part of their promotion, they decided to body paint a couple of good looking women, which I know would draw complaints if this was done in Canada. Oh, and this was beside the kids playground the VVO had setup. The funny part is that no one really seemed to take too much notice.

On Sunday afternoon, there was a parade, where all the kings of Saxony on horses passed by.

A roasted pig.

A giant old wood barrel, which used to hold beer.

What's a festival without music?


An overview.

A man-powered marry-go-round. I guess this is part of the medieval theme. I felt sorry for the guy turning the wheel, like a hamster. How humiliating...

The Berlin Beer Mile

A couple of weekends ago, I headed up to Berlin with 3 other friends for a fun weekend. It just turned out that the International Berlin Beer Festival was going on that weekend. This is an absolutely huge event. This event spanned 2.2km down Karl-Marx-Allee. There were over 240 breweries from all over the world selling their beer.

Most of the breweries were German, but there were a good number of Czech breweries representing. There were also a couple of Canadian breweries there too. There was Labatt's selling their ice beer, and Moosehead. I'm pretty sure the Canadian beer was thoroughly disgraced by the Czech and German beers.

We met up with an English speaking bunch living in Berlin, which was nice because they know the city well. Out of the 2.2km, we only made it through 600m before we had to call it quits.

The group I went up with.


The view from Frankfurtor Tor down Karl-Marx-Allee. You can see the TV tower in the background.


The pamphlet listing all the breweries.



It was very busy.
At the Budweiser stand. No, not the American Budweiser.

What's a German beer festival without bratwurst?

After making it 600m, we decided we had enough beer. So we all filled up our glasses before heading onto the U-Bahn.

We did some sight seeing the next day. The Brandenburg Gate in the distance, with the TV tower in the background.

The Soviet War Memorial built to honour the Soviet soldiers that died in WWII.


This is the holocaust memorial that was just recently completed. It was being built when I was here 3 years ago.

Polterabend

Traditionally, a German couple throw a huge party on the eve of their wedding. It's called Polterabend. The word is "poltern" means to to make a racket. The word "abend" means evening. So I guess the literal translation would be "noisy evening". The attendees bring porcelain and smash it on the driveway in front of the house. It is supposed to bring good luck. The bride and groom must clean up the mess by midnight or else it's bad luck.

A colleague of mine was getting married and threw such a party at his house in a small village outside of Dresden. The funny thing is that in a small village, everyone just shows up uninvited, adding to the porcelain mess.

There's still daylight, and the mess is getting pretty big.

The kids making sure that it's harder to clean up.

A not-so-subtle reminder that kids usually follow after a marriage.

A really nice bar setup they had in their backyard. Wow, what a party!

A "goulasch cannon": The nickname for this military soup making vehicle.


Shots of egg liqueur (tastes like egg nog with a lot of rum) and spice schnapps (like Jägermeister).

"Our polterabend we participated".

A work colleage and I.

A congo line. Did this come from Germany? I remember doing this at the Kitchener Oktoberfest.

A giant mess...
The police coming to quiet down the party...