About a year ago, I wrote in this blog about the “German Angst” – the stereotypical German distrust of modern technology. But it’s about time to set things straight here: we Germans are not always so reluctant to make use of modern technology.
For just over a fortnight, from the 17th of September, Munich will be completely transformed for Oktoberfest. Men will wear their Lederhosen and women their Dirndl, and visitors come from all over the world to visit the Theresienwiese (that’s why Bavarians call the Oktoberfest “Die Wiesn”) to have some fun. But nowadays, visitors also bring their smartphones. And because “is there an app for this?” has become the new “do I have everything I need?” they’ll use them to navigate through the world’s biggest Volksfest.
A quick search led me to find at least 20 different apps specially designed for this year’s Oktoberfest. Do you want an overview of the different fun rides, what you’ll have to pay and how long the queue is? Do you want to be kept up-to-date about how crowded the Oktoberfest is via live cams? Or do you just want to see how the beer price has changed over the past few years? (That’s a very important question for Germans – we don’t really mind about DAX share prices going down but everybody is quite curious about the current price for a Maß at the Oktoberfest.) No problem, most of the overview apps like “Wiesn 2011”, the “Oktoberfest App” or “Oktoberfest.de” will provide you with all this information and many more features.
There are even apps to help with some of the nuances of the language. In several parts of Germany, the Bavarian language is considered foreign, so if anyone tells you “Na Madla, deaf i da amol an ausgeb’n?” or “Wea ko’, dea ko’!” you definitely won’t get any help from Google Translate. In these cases there are several apps to help you translate the things that locals say – including an app especially for insults… And of course, we all know the problem when you are standing in the crowd, everybody’s singing along to German Schlager – but you’ve forgotten the words! Don’t worry, there’s also an app for that, as well as apps which should help with dating at the Oktoberfest, or to help you send an individual Lebkuchenherz to your sweetheart/friend/Mum…
The question is, of course: do I really need all that stuff? Well, honestly, I don’t know. Although I’ve been living in Munich for some time, I haven’t been to the Oktoberfest yet. But I decided to finally give it a try this year and with all those preparations and those apps to help me, what could possibly go wrong?
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