Do you people have an "octoberfest" every year like they do over here....

I think so Lyn.

We don't have one here but we do have a Basque Festival. We have a huge Basque community here, and a trip around the local graveyard is an education, as their names are unpronounceable.

   Thank you John for posting that, it was helpful, I guess we are about equal in ways as to the over all of it. Mt. Angel and I go back a long ways in an weird way. It has an huge church that is the town more or less, seen for miles around in this "hop" growing area and they are used for making beer, there's an abby up on the hill above town. They sent me an Christmas Card last December. I can't imagine how they got my address. The local Senior Citizens center is one of the places I like to support there every year, as this is an rural area for the most part. I started out buying homemade quiltsfrom them, and have bought about a bit of everything since then. The very first time I had ever went there some years back, the church doors were closed and it bothered me...so I said to myself..."Oh, God..how are people suppose to come to church if the doors are closed?"....next morning was followed by an earthquake in the area.(first one ever recorded there and the last one so far also o fthat strength)..raise the entire roof of the church about three inches, you could see daylight through the top..just enough the doors couldn't be closed. I felt that quake...as it woke me up that morning some almost 50 miles away....so then I did feel bad, and I went back to see the damage, and I put into the suggestion box to make the church on the National Register of Historic places, and they did, and repaired the damage later on... I was walking out of the church from inspecting the damage and it was an good thing I had my sun-glasses on as something over came me with such an "feeling" I was almost on my knees in tears. I go back there most every year. One year my hubby had his vacation and we decided to go to Bend, in central Oregon, and I knew if we did we'd most likely miss this event. But I put it out of my mind and we took off. Kind of feeling an bit bad about missing it though. We got to our motel and went to use the swimming pool and spa and I ran into this huge guy there, with kind of reddish/brown hair, and I asked him if he was from the area, and he said "no", he was just visiting there a bit..and he was talking to the kids, and I told him we were on vacation...and he looked at me and he said, "I guess I need to go to dinner here pretty soon"... this was in the afternoon, but I didn't think to much about that, and he said as he left, have a nice vacation, maybe I'll seen you again here soon and left. I thought he was just being nice. We got back into town at the end of Octoberfest and I said to hubby, you know we could go to "dinner" as they close up things and still make it to church..before they close up before evening mass that day, and he said "Why not?"..so off we took, I creeped inside the church as the choir was singing thier last song and sat down and looked up as I had not seen all the repairs yet and stared right at an huge man with reddish brown hair, which I knew to be Jesus and without his "robes"...like the guy I had been talking to in Bend. I just kind of sat there my mouth agasp. They had put relief pictures of the 12 stations of the cross around the church walls below the stained glass windows. I have the weirest expereince people...ever since that near-death expereince, Just weird stuff goes on now and then. This church is just one of them, and I never know what quite to expect. It's coming up here pretty soon again.

I probaby shouldn't be posting this here but I'm reading an book currently about England in 875 AD...and if it weren't for this site, I'd never enjoy that book so much, as I look at it's "living" history through the pictures here, While the history line is correct, the characters are fictional. "Lords of the North"..by Cromwell, whom has written upteen books apaarently from the jacket of the book. I thought it might help me understand the history of my genealogy to this area. He is though teaching me place-names of an earlier era. I am so thankful for this site though.... Thanks POE!

My humblist apology to the author of this book, it is Bernard CORNwell..not Cromwell, I was doing Cromwel''s in history "on line" yesterday so it must of stuck in my mind. This man authored the Last Kingdom, as well as 39 other works at the time of this book being written...busy man!!! He's got me busy to understanding place names of England in the earlier periods versus the later periods, but when it get to "document time" it might help me some, though understanding  many early documents in England are in Latin.

It's in Fairfield Australia Lyn, an outer suburb of Sydney.

The last couple of years has ended in a big fight.

I have heard of Octoberfest but Salem, Massachusetts lives in it's own time bubble during October. LOL!  We have a month long celebration called "Haunted Happenings" which is kicked off with a huge parade. Here is a link if anyone is intersted in checking it out:

Haunted Happenings