While he joined in custom at the Oktoberfest, his wife ordered a bottle of lemonade

In Munich our tour bus let us off at the Oktoberfest before checking us into our hotel.

The Oktoberfest turned out to be no more than a huge carnival whose main purpose was the gross consumption of Bavarian beer.

We walked past what seemed half a mile of insane rides, sideshows and fast-food stands at which sausages, ice cream, roasted chicken and pretzels were being sold by the ton.

Every 200 feet or so stood an enormous hall bearing the logo of some famous beer--Hofbrau, Lowenbrau, Paulaner Brau and so on. Their interiors were as large as football fields, and were divided into railed sections filled with long tables at which hundreds of the locals sat drinking beer from one-liter mugs.

We had been given two hours, and I wondered what one did with one’s time at an Oktoberfest. I found out. One drinks beer.

We finally entered Paulaner’s. Every section was tended by a waitress (most of them no longer young), who brought the foaming beer mugs to the tables from a corner where men in aprons were drawing the beer from huge barrels. (Outside we had seen the barrels arriving on drays drawn by the kind of horses you see in Budweiser ads.) The barrels weren’t as big as the wine vat we had seen in Heidelberg Castle; that was the largest wine vat in the world, holding 49,000 gallons. But they were certainly large enough to put several dozen grown men under the table.

We sat at a table and I ordered a beer. My wife, dismayed by the size of the mugs, ordered a bottle of lemonade, which I took to be disrespectful of Bavarian custom, if not disgraceful to American honor.

Exactly one-half hour later I turned my mug up and drained the last drop. Meanwhile, we had watched a group of young Germans grow increasingly boisterous and maudlin. Our waitress, unintimidated by the rising tide of inebriation, busied herself by removing emptied beer mugs 10 at a time.

I floated back to our bus, where our tour driver, Klaus, was waiting for us, sober as usual, and we drove on to the Arabella, a big, modern hotel of concrete, glass and steel that was built for the Olympic Games in 1972.

In the evening we all went to a Bavarian nightclub to hear the celebrated Franzi yodel. We were familiar with her talent from the tape we had heard on the bus. She turned out to be a tall, voluptuous blonde. Although she spoke only in German, except for a few salutations to the Americans present, she seemed to have the comic style of Joan Rivers. Her most beguiling stunt, besides her yodeling, was the manipulation of her bosom, which was of formidable size and only half-covered. Through breathing or muscular control she was able to make it jump up at will, at least two inches, by way of punctuating a particularly felicitous yodel. She also played cowbells.

The next day we had three hours at liberty in the Marienplatz, or old town square, arriving at 11 o’clock in time for the glockenspiel. This is a carillon with a group of enameled copper man-size soldiers and knights who joust in full armor in a balcony of the 19th- Century Gothic town hall. They must have built it to amuse the peasants.

We looked into the 15th-Century Gothic church and when we left it we saw a tiny dachshund tied up outside. He was watching the church door for his master. In his lonely anxiety he was very appealing, and I was trying to console him when a woman came along and began berating me in German. Evidently she thought it was my dog. Soon another woman came up and joined in the hubbub, apparently expressing her general disgust with anyone who would leave a dog tied up outside a church. Soon there was a small crowd. My explanation fell on uncomprehending ears. We finally walked away, followed by unanimous disapproval.

We had an excellent lunch, with the usual beer and sausages, in a cavernous and labyrinthine rathskeller in the Town Hall. When the waitress brought our check she lifted the napkin over the basket of rolls she had brought us and charged us for the two we had eaten.

I wondered how we were going to spend our two remaining hours in the Marienplatz. The answer was soon forthcoming. My wife bought a pair of shoes. She first saw a pair of low pink boots she liked in a shop called Salamander. But she remembered having seen another Salamander shop elsewhere, and wanted to check that one out first. We backtracked to the first Salamander, where she tried on several pairs of shoes, only to decide that she liked the pink boots better. Actually, I think she called them fuchsia. We trekked back to the other Salamander, and after trying on two or three other pairs, she actually bought the fuchsia boots.

That left us with just enough time to have a beer. We walked along the square, looking for an empty table at the numerous sidewalk cafes; but it was a busy time of day. Someone was sitting at every table.

Finally we found an empty, but no one came to wait on us. My wife went into the cafe and came out with two beers.

“Guess what?” she said. “It’s a Burger King.”

Only then did I notice the familiar logo on the umbrellas.

We were at home.