November 2002 - Nr. 11
Kitchener Oktoberfest 2002
A continuing Success Story
by Herwig Wandschneider
Oktoberfest 2002, the 34th Annual, largest in North America and second largest in the World, closed on the 19th of October following 9 days of successful partying and activities without significant incidences. Kitchener streets have returned to normal, the event venues and clubs have cleaned up, most tents are taken down and the hundreds of hardworking volunteers are breathing a sigh of relief. Again, it was all worth it.
The
countless number of activities in and around Kitchener-Waterloo have to be
carefully selected, so the visitor – or the local – can incorporate some
hours of sleep. But even while sleeping, music will still ring in people’s
ears, not only from the enthusiastic oompahpah in various places around the
cities, but also from events like Molson’s Rocktoberfest, a slightly
different style of music at slightly different noise levels. Bones will ache
from Chicken Dances and one-too-many Polkas, and the voice will have
cracked, perhaps even recovered by now, from the – eins – zwei – drei –
gsuffa’s mixed with downing a few of the beers. Feet may still hurt from
watching the parade Thanksgiving morning, as it passed with colourful bands
and floats, horses and barrels, clowns, dignitaries, queens and lots of
beauties, all in a festive, jovial and upbeat mood.
There
are also more relaxing days, like family day, for example, on the first
Sunday as here, at the Concordia Club, in the Tent or in the "Halle", where
more children then in prior years received their fun-and games
indoctrination into Oktoberfest festivities, either carried or actively on
the floor doing – you guessed it – the chicken dance.
Of
course, you can dance to mellow and not so mellow tunes in different halls
in the Schwaben Club, one with the Romeros and more -, the other with the
Golden Keys and less - light, always mixed with Oktoberfest Stimmung und
Heiterkeit. And as you make the rounds, you will run into some of the
performances and shows as here in the Transylvania Club.
If you came to compete in races, lifting and pushing, table tennis, chess, bows and arrows, exhibits, shows or to roam about galleries, crafts, antiques, it was all there on a platter.
In the end, visitors – and locals – will have gone home, relieved that beyond the insanities of daily news, threats, catastrophes and miseries around the world, there is space for fun, games und "ein Prosit auf die Gemütlichkeit"!!
