Oktoberfest in April

If there's one thing I've learned in Spain, it's that at any given moment there is probably something bizarre, fun, and hilarious happening right under our noses. I'm not saying Ciudad Real is always bustling with things to do, just that now and then they hit the sweet spot. The latest installment in "what is happening, where are we?" came to us in the form of Oktoberfest. 

Yep, it's April 18th, and Ciudad Real is right in the middle of a ten-day celebration of German beer, food and to some extent, music. Other cities wait till, well, October, to have Oktoberfest, but not Ciudad Real. Maybe they like being several months ahead (or behind, depending on how you look at it) or maybe the German band charges fewer euros in April. We'll never know why it came about, but one thing's for sure, we're happy about it. 

We even went on opening night to check out the liters of beer and to celebrate our friend Jenna's birthday. Here are Jenna and Jessica with some mighty big beers:

The Oktoberfest organizers erected a big tent in one of the main plazas in town and decked it out with German beer signs and banners that look suspiciously like they're leftover from St. Patrick's Day celebrations (is orange a particularly "German" color?) They also have a bunch of tables set up beer-garden style and on the first night they had a German-speaking Bavarian Orchestra. 

Since that first night we've been back once (on "Day of the Pig", free-sausage night) and there were considerably fewer Spanish people hanging out and instead of the live band we got to enjoy disco-era and 80's hits coming from a laptop. Nothing like hearing some American hits while drinking a half-liter of hefeweizen in small-town Spain. 

Here are a few of our friends; Erica, Mariana, and Jenna:

This isn't the world's best photo, but I wanted to show y'all the advertisements for Oktoberfest that are all over town. The ads feature a pretty (and quite busty) lady with her pretzel and beer. Also note that if you attend Oktoberfest, they are advertising "máxima diversión", or "maximum fun":

In addition to beer they have plenty of German sausages, some pretty dry pretzels, pastries and cheese for sale. Here's WP with the giant wheels of queso:

And to prove my point about random things happening all over Spain, I'd like to direct your attention to the video below. On our last day in Barcelona, my family had already left for their plane, and Will and I were wandering the streets looking for anything that was open. Our last day was Easter Monday, a big holiday in Spain, so very few stores were open. After going several blocks seeing only a few people, we stumbled upon this plaza with a huge crowd. Of course, we had walked into a Swing Dancing festival in Barcelona. They had an awesome junior high band playing swing tunes and a bunch of people were showing off their dance skills. 

We had a good time watching the dancers and then ended up finding a Mexican restaurant with decent food. I never thought I'd be so happy to eat chilaquiles verdes, a chip/green salsa/cheese/sour cream/avocado plate that had been a staple in SF life. 

Tomorrow morning we fly to Lisbon, Portugal where we have grand plans to try local pastries, see some cool castles, and taste port wine! I'm sure we'll get into some adventures along the way...xoxo!