In the past 17 days, people visiting Munich's Oktoberfest drank a record 7.5 million liters of beer — around 1.98 million U.S. gallons. That figure is made more striking if one notes that the festival, which ended Monday, hosted some 6.9 million visitors this year — or 200,000 people short of a record turnout.
And as always, officials in Munich say they've got quite a Lost and Found box to go through. As Der Spiegel reports, items turned in this year include:
An eight-centimeter grasshopper (alive)
A Viking helmet
Two crutches
An electric wheelchair
A case full of musical notes
1,300 items of clothing
520 wallets and over 1,000 identity cards
390 mobile phones, 370 pairs of eyeglasses, and 425 keys.
Only one set of dentures was turned in — which came as a surprise to Charles Reinbold, who's worked at the festival's lost-and-found office for nearly 20 years.
"I think the adhesive has improved so the false teeth don't come out when people are chewing meat," he told Der Spiegel.
"The year I started," he said, "I remember we had five or six sets of false teeth in, and a pensioner walked in and tried them all on. Unfortunately, his weren't among them."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/10/04/141058199/oktoberfest-tallies-7-5-million-liters-of-beer-lost-and-found-office-is-busy?sc=fb&cc=fp