October In Burgenland: Hot Weather, Harvest & An Octoberfest!

We Bavarians are an inventive lot...

That is the nice thing about starting off somewhere new. One gets to make new traditions and customs. Well, sort of and I hope so. Frankly, it needs one more show like yesterday ( the second of our own little Octoberfest ) to make it a tradition and judging by the sentiment expressed last night, next year will be a bigger event.

As with anything discussed late into the party, it might be forgotten in the morning. Fortunately I remember and will send little mini-reminders to those in the seat of ' family-power '!

Even though they all lead busy lives, they ( my cousin, her husband, her Dad and Mum ) drove down from Bavaria to see us. They helped and were indispensable for the grape harvest but being an ingenious lot, they ordered a proper keg of Okotberfest beer which they brought with them.

Please keep your distance, keg of beer on-board!

look, if they haven't yet got a bumper sticker, I should make one up for them...

We organized our little fest for yesterday afternoon complete with proper vittles and stone pitchers. My uncle brought his accordion, which almost seems like it is an extension of his hands. He played so many songs for us and all from memory. When he eventually took his accordion away to his car, the neighbour across the road came hurtling out from her shop to ask him to continue. Apparently they had opened the shop door to hear his ditties. Fabulous.

Sitting there last night, surrounded by family it made me realize how special it is to have one. Great stuff and it is even more special to me that most of our family does come to visit us crossing oceans and mountains!

The dress code for the boys was Lederhosen and they did look great.

A Bavarian tradition: hitting the spout in. You can't see it here, but we all had both our hands raised...one with camera and video recorder and one holding out our empty pitchers to be filled.

Bob kind of looks like he is making us cue up single file and making sure we kept to it.

Bob has realized that it's his turn next! The keg has been chilling in the fridge for two days and the beer was refreshingly cold on such a warm October's day. The temperature was in the mid twenties...

The sausages were still being grilled.
Life in Burgenland is so nice.

Biggi