Remember how Lindsey bought Pens tickets for my birthday? Well, her birthday was the 15th of November and to celebrate, I took her to the Steelers/Raiders game this weekend. It was an awesome game, especially since the Steelers destroyed the Raiders 35-3. If you want a nice little recap of the game, go to Sean’s site. Instead, I will give you a bit about the experience.
We left the apartment around 8:30 a.m. and made it to Pittsburgh in great time. Unfortunately, I am an idiot and did not grab beer the night before. I kept thinking that any of the bars on the way down would be open. Apparently, only Champs in State College opens early on a Sunday. Luckily, Lindsey had some beers. Another thing I never think about when going to a sporting event is parking. I assumed parking would be the same as a Pirate game, obviously I am retarded. Remember, this was my first regular season Steelers game and the first time I ever drove down to a game.
I found a garage and the guy taking the money ($40!) asks what kind of car I have and then says “I got a great spot for you.” What the hell does that mean? We drive by at least 15 empty spots and he guides me between two giant pillars and has me parallel park. I guess he figured there would be a ton of cars clamoring for a garage up past PNC Park.
We meet up with Lindsey’s sister (Kayla) and her boyfriend (Adam–an Oakland fan). We drink a few beers and then head off to find our company’s tailgate. It took us forever to find the damn thing. No one seemed to be able to give us any kind of directions. I wish we would have found it earlier though, they had great food and plenty of free beer.
We head to the stadium and find out seats, which were pretty fantastic. Did you know that Penguins players can get Steelers tickets for friends and family? That is how we got the tickets and they were quite reasonably priced.
The nice thing about watching the Raiders get crushed was that they had to punt many times. Why would this matter? Well, their long snapper is Jon Condo, who went to my high school and graduated a year after me. Check this post out it you would like to see Jon.
In fact, since my phone is sooooo fantastic for taking pictures, I took one of Jon snapping the ball. Hope you can see him, he is #59. Seem him there? Yeah, me neither. Sorry.
After the game, we went to the car. And as I expected, the garage was still pretty empty except for my car being wedged between two pillars. Glad they saved those other spots for all the other large cars that might need them.
I also made the mistake of listening to Lindsey on the way home. She said she wanted to stop at the Waterfront to see a friend. I was going to just hop back on 279 and head north. Either go up to 79 and take 80 across and maybe stop off at my mom’s house.
Traffic was ridiculous and we sat there for over an hour. Then we decided to go another way: 28 North to Kittaning (or is it spelled Kittanning? Too lazy to look it up), which then takes you to 422, which goes to Ebensburg. In case you did not know this, Ebensburg is the nexus of all highways: 219, 22, 422, close to I-99…
We left the game at 4:55 and made it home at 8:58 (we stopped to eat for like twenty-five minutes). Aside from the horrible traffic, the entire day was awesome and I cannot wait to go to another game. I want to take her to a Penn State game next year. Actually, it does not even matter if we go to a game, I want to take her tailgating.
