We were in Munich, Germany in September 2006 and just happened to encounter a small beer festival. The locals refer to it as Oktoberfest. It sounded interesting so we decided to check it out. Actually, this entire trip originated from my lifelong dream of going to Oktoberfest. I had heard from many that it is too touristy, crowded, over-commercialized, and it was, but it was still worth the trip.
We met some fun locals including a man who actually lives in the alps, he was referred to as a "Mountain man" and a very friendly old man named Joseph who served in the German army in 1945 when he was only 12 years old. This was the most moving experience of the trip as he was brought to tears telling us stories of his experiences.
We stayed at the Pension Westfalia http://www.pension-westfalia.de/index2.htmlwhich is located just across the street from the festival. It was clean, extremely cheap considering we were there during Oktoberfest, the owner was extremely friendly and spoke perfect English, I believe his name is Peter.
