The Southern-most Oktoberfest

We don't need many excuses to throw a party at the South Pole but Oktoberfest has been a big celebration here every time Robert Schwarz has spent the winter.

A native of Bavaria, he was born with the ability to make pretzels.

He deftly rolled out long strands of dough and twisted them into giant pretzels the size of a hubcap.

The twelve flags that were hanging in the Galley for the winter are gone now but Kris helped to transform the boring colorless dining facility into a festive bier hall.

Travis was in charge of the streamers. OK, it's toilet paper.

But it still made for a fun party and we dined on bratwurst, sauerkraut and pretzels.

To add some scale, here's BFK eating his pretzel. He's a rather large guy so the diameter of that pretzel is actually about 2 feet.

And of course there was beer. People brought out their precious supplies of imported beers that they've been saving all winter. Brien still had a can of Kokanee that was flown in from Canada in 2005 by the twin otter pilots for Eric the Canadian cook.

Robert and Laura look like they came straight from Munich. The party went long into the night with countless rounds of Ein Prosit and bad 80s German music. It's a good thing we just celebrated for one night instead of several weeks like the real Oktoberfest.