There's no such thing as Skotchtober fest...part 2

(A couple things: Make sure you read part 1 first. Also, I hope everyone is clicking on the pics, which are actually thumbnails. In some of the pics with lots of people, there's all sort of little things in every shot (which actually get blown up quite nicely) - including hidden funboys!)

After we settled in to the table, we started ordering beers (by the STEIN!) and basically started watching the craziness around us. The tents DO have a center of attention - and that is the raised dais in the middle of the thing with a 20+ member band. Througout the day and night (we were in the tent for like 5 hours or so) the band would play multiple sets, roughly 25-45 minutes at a time, then take a 15 minute break, and then do it all again. The song list was interesting. It seemed to include many German classics (actually in German, and which we didn't know), multiple universally popular songs (to include Happy Birthday of all things, and others), and some extraneous things that made us wonder how they made the trip into German beer halls. From this last category stems the most interesting portion of the song list. We were all quite perplexed, for example, when they played (and multiple times) the John Denver song that goes "Take me home....take me home...to the place...where I belong...West Virginia.....take me home". Dude - unbelievable. What was even more nutty was that to a man EVERY person in the beer hall was singing this one - every German and tourist alike, making me think that this is some sort of crazy folk hit in Germany. I remember wondering if half the people in the place could even find West Virginia on a map. They also threw in "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi at one point, which was classic. But that John Denver song - man that was surreal.

The people watching in the beer hall was second to none. Surrounded by old timers and funboys alike, the constant activity had all of our heads on swivels. During songs, between songs, the whole nine. I'm a little disappointed that my camera took so many blurry pictures. (I've found that my camera has to be perfectly still to do the job - it needs that two second time to auto focus properly when I push the button down halfway. If I rush it, as I was doing trying to catch funboys performing their varied antics at that specific second, then the pictures come out blurry. Also, whenever I give the camera to somebody else, the pictures come out blurry. Hell, maybe it's time for a new camera...) He are some of the goings on around us....some are a little blurry - but they get the point across.





Glad to see this lady out all the way from the shire....



I'm not good enough with words to describe this picture











It's like the camera was drinking too!


The food served in the tents is what you'd expect. A lot of large pretzels, but also some chicken dishes, potatoes, and other such stuff. The waitresses, whom were dressed in classic German lass apparel, were pretty quick and responsive, I must say. Our waitress was an older (say 40's) German lady who didn't take any shit from drunken idiots trying to get behind her. After she got bumped pretty harshly from behind at one point, she put down her tray of stuff on a table and promptly gave the offending funboy a solid two-handed shove. We all toasted to that.


Nearby youthful funboys enjoy the lack of a drinking age....



The beer on the left is called cola-bier, which is a 50/50 mix of cola and beer - it's very popular here. I haven't tried it yet.






Funboys everywhere..
.


Typical beer tent table










This guy posed a little too gladly - in fact looking back I should have been more frightened...


Jamie and Laurie


When songs came on it was very common for people to stand up on their benches and sing along and dance. Some people were more zealous than others in standing up. The guy behind me, for example, decided that he would stand up at the fucking drop of a hat and was on his feet more than 90% of the 5 hours we were in the damn tent. The consequence of this was that every time I turned my head around, I was staring directly into this funboy's ass. I mean - it was RIGHT there. And he was often dancing, gyrating around and shimmying his funboy hips - it was something to see alright. A little too much funboy (if that's possible). Suzanne, sitting to my right, had the same problem. Here's some documentation....


Umm, not good...



For five hours straight, I'm telling you...



Situation Critical!


All around, there were examples upon examples of funboys. Soon my criteria will be set in stone.



A prototypical funboy shoe...


And again at mid-range...

That's right - I'm not above making fun of people's clothes. Especially euro-clothes!

More pics!


This guy's dancing had a disturbing propensity to form wedgies...


Chris and I raise a glass....


Jamie keeps on drinkin'


Damn it feels good to be a funboy! (Check out the sweet painting in the background)







The only picture of our waitress, sadly blurry...



Smeagol's brother takes a leak! (Herren Pissoir - one of my favorite phrases)



We rolled out of the beer tent at about 8 pm on Saturday night. Man, was it nice to get out of there and into the fresh, smoke-free air. I think I consciously took deep breaths for like 5 minutes after we walked out. Following the tent, we were all pretty buzzed. Nobody was all that drunk, though - we took our time with the beers and generally did pretty well. Gwen and I went on some rides (see whirly picture from 2 posts ago) and just enjoyed the carnival like atmosphere. Following that, we all took off again, tired from a long day. Here are some pics of near the fest at night...



The Fest from Afar...




Cool statue...

And that's about it. We said goodbye to Jamie and the rest at their hotel room. Jamie gave us a stein (one of the many he'd stolen - I think he carted like 10 of those things back to the States on a plane the next day) and we took off for the night. Everybody was pretty tired but it was a damn fun time, I must say. Any day spent watching funboys in their element can't be bad, as far as I'm concerned. On Sunday, Gwen and I took in the breakfast again. Our train left at noon and we headed out. We got back to K-town (from here on out, my abbreviation of Kaiserslautern) around 5 pm and then settled in for a full day of NFL football. Gwen was pretty pissed when the Steelers lost to the pats, and then I was more tired than pissed when my boys lost to the Bolts (the game ended at like 6 am my time). Overall, it was still a sweet weekend. It was great to see Jamie and Laurie - we'd had so many fun times back in med school. It was cool to see Chris again as well, and meet his new lady. (And I'm glad I could share some funboy ass with her for 5 straight hours).

Oh yeah - here's two more funboys for the road:


I think this guy's on the official funboy council...

d
And of course, the biggest funboy of them all...




The end.