“Live the Life You Love”— we seem to be doing just that! Sam and I have been talking for months and months about going to see an ND football game. He (and everyone else) kept telling me that being AT a Notre Dame football game was a truly “religious experience” . Football? Religious experience? C’mon! Alright alright, let’s do it. So, We had been keeping an eye on flights and hotel costs over the last several months and finally the week before the designated trip weekend, Sam told me there would be almost no way that we could fly. The flights were looming around $300 a pop and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have an extra $300 layin around.. so…we decided to drive. For those of you who don’t know, I absolutely cannot stand traveling in the car for long periods of time. The trips back and forth between ATL and the boro were painful enough, and this trip was 10+hours. Oucheemama! Oh well.. If we wanted to go, this was our only option. So… LETS DO IT. Sam also advised that the tickets (if found for face value) would be about $90 a pop. Eeeeek! LUCKILY Sam is awesome and found tickets fo’ FREE!!!!! OK so we HAD to go now! What started out as almost a $1000 trip quickly turned into a $400 trip (after gas and food and booze, duh).
The weekend was finally here!!!!!!! We both left work early and headed up to Indiana. “Now sit down shut up and here we go”. We played so many road games and talked and talked and talked and talked and ate snacks and talked and stopped for dinner and talked. FINALLY we got to the hotel around midnight. Literally crashed into bed and woke up at 6AM to get back on the road. We stayed about an hour outside of South Bend because it was $300 cheaper. Heck yea! So we drove straight to the liquor store, bought of tail gating treasures and headed to breakfast at Nick’s Patio. YUM. Remember this house crescent? Yep I bet you do. I know I remember it from the last trip we made to ND in April. And, yes, I ate the entire thing.
We needed a good base for drinking, duh. After we stuffed out, we headed over to tailgate and met up with Stretch and his parents. Then over the course of the next 5 hours college friends came and went. It was so fun to get to know some of sam’s friends from his college days! I heard sooo many stories!
We left tailgate and headed to the exact opposite end of campus to partake in watching the changing of the guard as well as the band warm up. Both were extremely cool traditions! There were SO MANY PEOPLE on campus! A campus built for 8,000 had over 90,000 people on it. And not one person was on the grass. Just imagine that many people trying to weave in and out of each other on solely the side walk. Yea. Craziness. We then stumbled to the game, scanned our tickets, and found our seats.
There’s a two hour period in which we don’t really need to go into…. *insert cheesy hold music *
ANDDDDD we’re back! The 2nd half of the game was incredible. We had pretty decent seats (they were free so they were the best seats in the house!) The Irish scored the most points scored in the ND stadium since 1995 so being a part of that was incredible. The game was unlike any other college game I’d ever experienced. Not that I have too many to go off of, but still. It was just football. The fans were there to be fans. No one was obnoxious and in your face cursing (ahem…UGA fans) and no one was throwing bottles and chanting F** YOU! (ahem Michigan fans..) everyone was there to have fun and enjoy good ol fashion football. The marching band was gigantic (as it should be!) and played awesome songs. Every student in the student section was wearing the same shirt which was pretty cool and they were all very active in their dances / chants / participation in the game and songs. It was really awesome to be a part of that! I always wanted to be a part of a game like that and a college like this. After the game was over not one person moved. The marching band played the ND Alma Mater. Both football teams turned, took their helmets off and listened to the band play as the entire stadium linked arms and sang. It was amazing. It was almost like a closing prayer in church.
After the game we went to one of Sam’s favorite restaurants in South Bend and got one of their famous burgers. MM mm!! Then headed back to the hotel and crashed into the most amazing bed ever.
Sunday morning we slept in (thankfully) and had a delish / famous SB breakfast and got back on the road.
My overall impression of my first Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Game:
So…. When can we do this again?!?!
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