In Bavaria, the clocks run differently

His hat wouldn’t tell you he was from Bavaria. It was made with dark green felt, with a brown rope around its base, a small brim with thin embroidery around the edges, and sat on his head intentionally askew.

“You can tell where people are from by their tracht,” my new friend shouted while pointing toward the multi-generational crowd. If I had to guess, I’d say he was in his mid-50s.

“Are you from Munich?” I asked while gesturing towards his clothes.

“Yes,” he hesitated, “well, I’m unusual.”

He was wearing his grandfather’s hat, who wasn’t from Bavaria, he explained. And then he went through the rest of his wardrobe - his lederhosen was also from his grandfather, but his shoes and jacket were from his father. Together, his tracht, the traditional clothes worn by German-speaking regions, was a tapestry - each piece, pattern, color, and button sewn into it told a story of generations and heritage.

Of course, to the undiscerning eye, you wouldn't really be able to tell his garb apart from the other 10,000 tracht-laden people with us in the Hacker Tent. It was the final night of Oktoberfest, and everyone was dancing and singing in unison.

"Where are you from?" he asks me, shouting over the music. I wasn’t in tracht and had a big camera around my neck, so I stood out.

We made small talk in between sips of our maß, the liter-sized beer glasses served at Oktoberfest. Though we had only met minutes before, in that moment we were best friends, arm in arm, singing, dancing, and drinking.

After a few minutes, my new friend turned to me and said, “You know, we have a saying here - ‘In Bavaria, the clocks run differently.’ It means Bavaria isn’t like the rest of Germany. Things can be weird or strange here.”[1]

Then, suddenly, the band started playing Ein Prosit [2], the informal Oktoberfest anthem. Every 20 or so minutes when the band plays this song, everyone stops what they’re doing to sing along, followed by a prost:

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit

Der Gemütlichkeit

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit

Der Gemütlichkeit

We clanked glasses and took a swig of beer. After that, he got lost in the cacophony of the night and I never saw him again. This is the way, though. In a sea of thousands of strangers, you eventually find a small enclave of folks, likely (and maybe preferably) strangers, and settle into the night. It’s a fleeting intimacy that can only exist at Oktoberfest after a few liters of beer.

But that phrase lingered in my head for the rest of the night. In Bavaria, the clocks run differently.

That, my friend, is for damn sure.

Oktoberfest, in Pictures

Note: There are a quite a few photos below, so you might need to view them in the Substack app or a browser.

While I was in Munich, I stumbled upon a zine release party for the Munich Street Collective. Their first zine was called Wiesn and it was all about Oktoberfest. They were were trying to take an edgy, street-photography-like approach while showing some of the less glamorous parts of the festival. I was inspired by some of their work and tried to put some of that ethos in the photos above. I hope you enjoyed. ✌️

Prost,

Skylar

References

[1] I had to look this up and it turns out there actually is a saying. In Munich, the eastern city gate (Isartor), tower’s construction is decorated with two glass clock faces. The hands of the clock on the western side move anti-clockwise, and the clock face itself has also been reversed. This was done deliberately, supposedly showing the humor of the people of Bavaria in general. And Former German Chancellor Willy Brandt once said “in Bavaria, the clocks run differently.” Source: https://www.muenchen.de/en/sights/isartor

[2] The lyrics roughly translate to “a toast to well-being.”