Queenstown Times: The 200th anniversary of the Oktoberfest beer festival is being celebrated in Munich. What does Oktoberfest mean to you?
Freddy Haentschel: Every region has their own Oktoberfest and I think they are much more fun than the big one because it's much more social and you meet friends and just hang out . . . whereas the big one is too international for me.
Julia Hegar: Everybody in the world talks about Oktoberfest, so I think once in your life you have to visit it because it's just amazing. You get the beer served in the 1-litre stein glasses and people get dressed up in lederhosen and dirndls and it's fun.
Lisa Goersch: I think the record for one lady was carrying up to 16 stein at once.
Alex Hoffmann: If you are from Munich, you do go there and it's your big thing of the year. There's different tents and certain areas of social status and the tourists. I'm from Bavaria and I've been asked if I would wear dirndls and, no, I don't. I think the last time I was 5 years old. I don't go shopping in it; it's for celebration.
Lisa Goersch: It's quite expensive; a big stein of beer would be $20.
Alex Hoffmann: At least, and even to get into the tents I think you have to pay so much for the entry fee. Back when I was studying, my friend and I couldn't afford it. But you can go to the Hofbräuhaus instead, which is open all year round and I think the closest in Munich to Oktoberfest.
QT: Any plans to celebrate Oktoberfest yourselves?
Julia Hegar: I've been to the Wanaka one. There are the dark and the light kinds of German beers served in proper glasses and they had traditional German food and oompah-oompah music, so it was funny. A lot of people got dressed in dirndls and lederhosen and the only thing different was the drinking games.
Lisa Goersch: They do quite a big one in Milford Sound with German food because there are five German chefs in Milford. I went there last year. You get your own personal stein, everybody gets dressed up; it's really good.
QT: But what about Queenstown?
Julia Hegar: It was such a mess [in Wanaka], they had to stop serving drinks because German beer is stronger and they had been serving from 5pm and, by 9pm, the people were such a mess.
Freddy Haentschel: That's the same for the real Oktoberfest. It's a question of whether Queenstown wants to cope with that.
Lisa Goersch: Queenstown is like Oktoberfest every day anyway!
QT: How does New Zealand compare with Germany?
Lisa Goersch: It's more beautiful and the people are so laid back, I think that's the No 1 thing. Kiwis are so much friendlier and it's completely different from the old-fashioned German lifestyle of you go to school, you study, you get the job and you stay in the job for the rest of your life.
Julia Hegar: I think status symbols are so much higher in Germany than here. Everything is about money and which car your neighbour drives. Here you go shopping in your gumboots - who cares?
Freddy Haentschel: What I like most about New Zealand is the fact that it's so small but the community thinking is so big. I'm from a horse-riding background and here I'm training regularly with at least two world champions and just had a clinic with an Olympic rider. It just wouldn't be possible in Germany.
Alex Hoffmann: There doesn't feel like there's a class system here. In Queenstown, there's so many rich people and there's working class and it doesn't matter how you dress, you all go to the pub.
