« | »

“Oktoberfest” in Big Bear

By Andrew | October 7, 2007

So I’m sitting in the Marina park in San Diego yesterday, where fall has finally hit, rendering the temperature a balmy 72 degrees, reading a book when I get a call from my friend Carrie, inviting me to go up to Big Bear with them to go to their Oktoberfest celebration.

What does Big Bear have in common with Germany? As near as I can figure: pine trees.

For some reason I think this sounds like a fun idea, since hey, I didn’t have anything planned right now anyway except for playing with my camera (taking like 100 pictures of a fucking seagull, with different aperture settings, seeing what happens, hoping that one might come out ok so I don’t feel like a total waste as a photographer (even though I am a total failure as a photographer and my total knowledge of photography(despite having owned an SLR for close to a year now) entails the following: smaller aperture settings for a blurry background, the 1/3 rule, and a polarizing filter helps get rid of haze and reflections)). So I figure, I like Big Bear, I like beer, let’s do this.

In my rush to get up to Riverside to meet up with my friends I don’t go to an ATM so I can get money out, figuring hey, they’ll have an ATM there. I also don’t bother getting a jacket since, hey, it’s still October, which is one of the warmer months in California so the temperature will be fine at 6700 feet, since we’re closer to the sun if nothing else. I also don’t bother to grab anything for lunch because hey, we’re going to Oktoberfest, there will be food there!

We arrive in Big Bear, stand in line to buy our tickets to get into the place, then stand in line to have our tickets taken to actually enter the place. (As an aside, there were vendors at Oktoberfest selling Navajo blankets and dream catchers. I wasn’t expecting anything authentic, per se, but sweet Jesus, this guy was right at the entrance) At this point I’m hungry and thirsty and in desperate need of a beer. And having the sum total of 25 dollars on my person I go to stand in line for an (the(!) as it turns out) ATM. After an interminable wait for the ATM, the person two people ahead of me manages to drain it of its funds. So with the remainder of the money I have on me I go to get food.

Now for some reason they don’t take cash at this event directly. All beer and food sales are done through tickets of various denominations. And there’s really nothing explaining how the ticket system works. So you have to ask the attendant how the (fucking (at this point I just want a drink and a bratwurst)) ticketing system works. She spends a minute explaining it. And has to repeat this explanation for everyone in line. I get to the front of the (fucking) line and look at the prices. Large beer, 11 dollars. “Dinner”, 9.50. Well, fuck. And they don’t take credit. “Miiiiiiiickey”, I call to my friend. “Can I borrow some moneeeeeeey.” Fortunately he has cash on him (which surprises me because he usually doesn’t) So I manage to borrow enough to buy my (fucking) tickets and go to the (fucking) beer (fucking) line.

“What can I get for you?”
“Whatever has the highest alcohol content”

After this, I’m off to the dinner line. Dinner is a bratwurst, some sauerkraut, some german potato salad(which is inexplicably served cold), and a piece of rye bread. I feel like I’m in prison. This I manage to consume in 30 seconds and then go foraging. As it turns out there’s a place outside that sells bratwurst (or at least a simulacrum thereof) for 6 bucks. And they take cash! (Which is still a problem, but not that huge of one since I’ve managed to borrow another 20 dollars). I down the bratwurst (which is approximately the size of 1(one) vienna sausage, and has been roasted to within an inch of its life) and I’m starting to feel a bit better since my blood sugar has stabilized and there’s still the nagging problem of the altitude headache, and now it’s fucking cold. Apparently the temperature is in the high 40s and I don’t have a jacket (actually, t.b.h., I don’t even OWN a jacket at present because the mean temperature of San Diego varies between 69-75 degrees during the year). Well, fuck again. Jaeger shots. I hate Jaegermeister, but fuck it, I’m cold and it’s the quickest way to get alcohol into me. So now I’m cold, running low on beer, I have the fucking awful taste of licorice in my mouth and I’m still somewhat hungry.

We all sit around a table being miserable for a while until Carrie tells us there’s a log sawing competition going on inside. Inside is crowded, but approximately 40 degrees warmer and we manage to find seating on the floor so we can watch people risk life and limb for a 10 dollar gift certificate to Big Lots. Surprisingly this was actually entertaining to watch. The people competing in this seemed to fall into two categories: a) Those people from the mountains who have actually USED a saw before and thus know exactly how not to bind the things. and b) The people who were up from out of town who have probably only seen a saw on TV and were, thus, hopeless. I don’t know how some of these people managed to avoid cutting their own legs off but they did it. Most entertaining was the “Hansel and Gretal” competition where some hapless husband and his wife got on stage, he inevitably doubling her weight, she inevitably having a lousy choice of footwear(with a frighteningly low μ-coefficient), and attempted to cut through a log. This resulted in the female hanging on for dear life as the husband pulled not only the saw, but his wife back and forth the saw binding and unbinding as it slowly worked its way through the log.

At the conclusion of this event the chicken dance was played for approximately the 400th time of the night and we figured it was probably a good time to make an escape, considering it was cold outside, crowded inside, the ATM was still busted and we were out of money.

This is where the night actually starts getting pretty good. Carrie knows a bar in Big Bear called, simply, The Pub which is actually one of the better bars I’ve been to. Good beer, a good bar menu (get the crabcakes and avoid the potato skins(olives on potato skins? What the fuck), a not too loud band and a decent atmosphere. There also an actual fireplace where a couple in funny sweaters that looked like they were straight out of a Newhart rerun were sitting and drinking brandy.

After a few beers and some scotch I decide it’d be a good idea to call my coworker, Ryan, who was supposed to be at Oktoberfest and see if it wanted to meet up at the bar. Upon reaching his voicemail I decide to do this in the persona of a gay german named Hans, who “vants to share [his] crabcakes or maybe just crabs mit him”. I leave approximately 5 of these voicemails for him including one where Hans “vanted to put [his] strudel in zee kugel”.

We didn’t hear from Ryan for a couple of hours by which time we’d left the bar and were on our way down the hill. He pretended he couldn’t understand what Hans was saying and that he’d give us a call “later”. Inexplicably, we didn’t hear from Ryan after that. Lame.

So yeah. Fuck Oktoberfest in Big Bear, but it’s worth the trip up for the bar.

Topics: Articles, Rants | No Comments »

Comments