Germany's fairs win hands down.
Ingolstadt has a yearly fest for two weeks starting in late May. Our neighbors Uli and Manu invited us along last year and we had a blast, so we were looking forward to returning this year. After a lot of schedule coordinating, we settled on last Friday as the day to hit the fair.
If you've been to a fair in the US, Germany's fests will seem quite familiar, with one exception: huge beer pavilions. All the rides look the same, there are many of the same contests (shoot balloons, knock down milk bottles, etc.) and there are similar foodstands. (OK, so getting REAL wurst and smoked trout probably isn't all that common in most US fairs...)
The beer pavilions are much, MUCH different than anything I'd ever seen at the Yolo County fair... Picture a huge, and I mean HUGE tent which holds around 3,000 people. The beer pavilions at Oktoberfest are over three times as big, holding somewhere around 10,000 folks per.
Last year we hit the Herrnbräu tent. This year we went to Nordbräu to sample their beer. We sat around for a couple hours eating roasted chicken, shaved Emmenthaler cheese, mandeln (caramelized almonds. YUM!) and chocolate-covered fruit. A band kept us entertained with Bavarian music, but it was a surprising mix of modern stuff along with the normal Oohmpa-pah. Oh yeah. We had a couple beers, too.
The beers were secondary to my real reason for heading to the fest this year: the frog fling contest.
Last year after a couple liters of beer, Uli grabbed me and took me to the funniest fair/fest game I've ever seen -- the frog fling. It's a circular booth with a large pool in the middle. In the pool is metal tree with bowls shaped to look like lily pads, slowly rotating. The tree has three or four levels of pads with the highest level having the most point value.
You stand outside the booth, put a plastic frog on a catapult, grab a rubber mallet and bash the launch lever on the catapult. The frog flies through the air and hopefully lands on one of the lily pads. The more frogs you get on the pads, the more points you get for a stuffed animal.
These are just the kind of contests I've always stunk at. Booth operators at the Yolo County fair loved it when I'd stop by because they were GUARANTEED a steady income. They probably took several months off after stopping by Woodland, Yolo County's center. "Hey, Tahiti's nice this time of year, and it's all thanks to that Holmes kid. Whadda guy!"
Last year I had no clue what I was doing with the fling, but I managed to fling a single frog onto the lowest-value lily. So what if all I won was a six inch yellow banana? It hangs proudly in our bathroom window, a monument to my frog-flinging ability.
This year, I got excited in early May when I saw the huge ferris wheel getting erected above the Ingolstadt skyline. "It's frog-flinging time!" I said to myself.
Pam went to the fest this year to eat chocolate fruit and mandeln. (Carmel-covered almonds) Uli and Manu went to listen to music and have a beer. No doubt about it, my reason for going through the gate was the frog fling. I needed the beers to get my mind and body into the correct state to win BIG. Last year was the six-inch bananna. This year, I wanted nothing less than the 8" green alligator.
We finally finished our food and beer at the Nordbräu tent and headed back down the main area of the fest. There it was, all lit up and beckoning me. I couldn't have been more excited if I was an eight-year old kid heading to Baskin Robins with a $20 bill.
Uli and I stepped up to the ring, I paid for our tickets and we both got five or six frogs apiece. A quick bit of Zen mind mantra helped to focus me. "Ahhhmmm gribbit gribbit. Ahhhmmmm gribbit gribbit." Actually, Pam's advice on optimal frog/catapult positioning was even more helpful.
I placed frog #1 on the launch pad and started to fix my aim on the top lily pad, wrapped in deep concentration. Frog flinging is serious stuff. You just can't leap into it. You've got to factor in things like the rotation speed of the lily pads, weight of the frog, cross winds, angle of the flinging catapult and true air humidity and temperature. THEN there's the rubber mallet factors: head weight, acceleration, head speed at impact, the list goes on. Add to that the danger from mid-air collisions with other flung frogs and you've got a lot of things to juggle around in your head.
It was time. Raising the mallet, I swung down with a moderate force. I didn't want to fling the first frog into the mass of stuffed snakes, rabbits and elephants hanging from the booth's ceiling. The frog lifted off the catapult's launch pad, flew through the air and... missed horribly. I'd completely miscalculated the rotational speed of the spinning lily pad tree. Not a complete disaster, though. I'd gained valuable data on air density and cross winds.
Frogs two through five, while somewhat closer, resulted in splashdowns far from any scoring pad. I was down to my last frog and I could sense some stress from my wife. Pam really had her heart set on that 8" green alligator. I could tell I'd have to come through with this last one or I'd be sleeping on the couch for a month.
My vision narrowed as I put the final frog on the catapult. The lights from the fest seemed to dim and the sounds quieted. The only things I noticed were the large crowd closely watching and the familiar-looking fellow across the booth. I think it was the same guy from the Yolo County fair game booths. He had a cellular phone in his hand, probably making a telephone call to his travel agent. "Franz? The Holmes kid is here again. Book me on the next plane to Tahiti."
Enough waffling. I let the mallet fly. The frog exploded off the catapult, arced through the air and landed smack dab in the middle of the highest lily pad. The crowd went wild and the fellow on the cellular phone began to weep. No Tahiti trip courtesy of me this year! Did I get my green alligator? Heck no! We got enough points for a 10" stuffed lion!
Next year I'm going after the beanie cap with the spinning propeller. Now if I can just figure out a way to practice...