A week and a half before elections (which are on September 22nd), Angela Merkel stopped by Osnabrück for a CDU (the Christian Democratic Union of Germany) rally. We stopped by for a little bit, just so we could say we saw her in person. She ended up walking through the crowd to get up to the stage, so we were pretty close to her. It seemed pretty informal compared to the US. There were just volunteers holding hands that made her walkway (not police) and the police that were there didn’t search people when they entered the square.
We went to Oktoberfest in a town near Osnabrück called Bad Iburg (this is actually Philip’s home town!). We all looked pretty cool waiting at the bus stop in Osnabrück in our dirndl’s and lederhosen. Thankfully there were a few other people taking the bus to Bad Iburg, so we weren’t completely alone looking silly. They set up a HUGE tent just for this one event, but it was really nice – wood floors, nice light fixtures, sturdy wooden tables and benches (they have to hold up to people dancing on them!), plus tons of blue and white banners/table clothes (Bavaria’s flag is blue and white), etc. There was a Bavarian band performing for the night and at one point they played a song with whips (there is a picture below where you can see the band members standing on tables in the audience). I’ve never seen anything like it! The beers only came in in half liter and liter glasses-needless to say I only had two half liter glasses the entire night. Once everyone was finished with their food (all meals involved pork and potatoes) people started standing/dancing on their benches. We didn’t know the words to most of the songs, but a few of them were older American songs (for example “Hang on Sloopy” by The McCoys was really popular) so we could sing along. It was a really fun night with our friends that we’ll never forget!
