Grafenwoehr Volksfest

When we first arrived here we went to a small volksfest in Vilseck...if you remember my description it went something along the lines of "crappy American parking lot carnival with better food." I was told that the Vilseck volksfest was nothing like the REAL ones...so, when we heard there was a giant one happening in Grafenwoehr we were really excited to go and I was super curious as to what would be different.

Essentially...its just a bigger American carnival with more food, a larger beer tent and a bunch of little tents where people put up random things you might want to buy. For example...there was a book called, "The Complete Watercolor Rendition of Kansas", Polish pottery, wooden figurines, owls made out of rocks, etc. Kind of like a beachfront junk shop and carnival combined.

As you walk around you see people in various stages of traditional German garb. Liederhosen for the men and drindl for the women. I really love this about Germans...and Americans that embrace being in Germany.

We were sitting in the beer tent watching the oompa oompa music that was playing when the horns started Bella just freaked out. Loud noises scare her right now so she cried for a little bit and we finally soothed her with pretzel...great mother of the year, right? Already establishing an emotional connection with food. :)



We loved the pretzels there...they were bigger than my head...or maddie's head as you can see. Bella munched and munched.



We also ended up buying some really delicious dried fruit...we asked for 1 kilo of 4 kinds of fruit (at 2.80 euro/kilo) and the fruitseller ended up handing us a bill for 28 euros. eh? The bag had about 6 kilos of dried kiwi in it... We're enjoying our $40 kiwi.

The one thing I do love about these are the military displays they have. Every kind of military vehicle you can imagine was there and you can get up inside and poke around and see how it all works...which, for me, who has that weird desire to drive large machinery at least once in her life, finds military vehicles particularly fascinating.

They were also gives rides on a Stryker...and had I been a little more patient we would have waited in that forever long line to ride it...but alas...I did not want to spend my time in a line.

Maddie rode on one ride...she thought the baby rides were too little and most of the other ones were too adult for her. So, the swings it was...and she had a great time.



We finished the day up with donnerkebabs.....Oh they are sooo incredibly good....



...and headed home just as the sky started to darken and the clouds started rolling in. The next Volksfest is in a town called Weiden and includes the whole medieval knights on horses bit. I'm hoping that additional festival activity takes "crappy American carnival" up one more notch.