Once upon a time there were these two groups of men. One group wore the hideous combination of orange and blue. The other wore the esteemed colors of red and black. And once every year since 1915, a mass exodus of over 60,000 twenty-somethings and college co-eds head to the neutral city of Jacksonville, FL for the one of the most intense and heated fights the world will ever see.
I'm talking about the annual Georgia/Florida football game, of course.
So, early Friday morning my roommates and I took off for what would end up being one of the best weekends of our lives.
The first night we went to this place called The Landing. It's like a huge outdoor bar/music venue--and also a mall, not sure how that works--kind of thing. Ten bucks to get in, and there's restaurants and bars and shops and it's just really a blast. So, we hung out there for a while, some shenanigans were had, and then we headed home.
The next morning we got up early to hit the continental breakfast at the hotel and tried to avoid the obnoxious Florida fans. After breakfast we picked out our outfits (because let's be honest, that's what really matters) and tried to figure out the tram. Then, we headed out to brave the masses!
We arrived at the Jacksonville Jaguar's stadium sometime around twelve. One of my roommates, Julia, her boyfriend is in the UGA band so we tried to find him before the game started. But, oh, with 60,000 people in one place, phone service was less than patchy--it was non-existent. So we wandered around and tried to find Forest for about an hour and a half. Finally, we found him in the very place that we started.
Next, we tried to meet up with some friends of Julia. Again, our phones wouldn't work so we were kind of just wandering around blindly. After another hour of wandering around, we finally found lot P and met up with our friends. So, we ate, drank, and just tailgated merrily for a bit before the game started.
About three o'clock our friends got ready to head to the game. We didn't have tickets (because they're freaking expensive!). So we were just going to hang around the tailgate and watch it on TV with our tailgating neighbors.
Then, suddenly, someone said, "Hey--let's go to the game!"
So off to find an ATM we went.
So now that we had money, we had to find tickets. Not only tickets, but we had to find three tickets together for the amount of money that we had (which wasn't a lot). After about four unsuccessful tries we finally found three tickets that were together and that were in our price range--and by price range, I mean that between the three of us we had exactly enough money to buy the tickets. And after we bought the tickets we had this moment of panic that they were fake or something. But they weren't! And--AND--they were on the fifty yard line about six rows up. In short, it was awesome.
And the awesomeness was only perpetuated by the fact that Georgia won--GO DAWGS!
So after almost getting on the wrong bus and heading to who knows where, we finally ended up back at our hotel. We quickly changed outfits (again) and went back to The Landing with our friends from the tailgate to eat and go out.
And then things started to get interesting.
I was the DD for the night and one of my roommates had a wee bit too much to drink--but it's GA/FL so who cares, right? But, this also meant that the majority of the night was chasing after her. It was bad but also humorous. And we'll just leave it at that.
BUT the highlight of the night was meeting Robin Williams. Or, at least a man that looked scarily like Robin Williams. He was also a little drunk and upon meeting me says, "Dixie? That's your name? What an awesome name! You know, I can see myself marrying a woman named Dixie. I can see myself saying someday, 'Yeah, that's my wife. Her name's Dixie. And she knows all about the South, football, fried chicken and all that shit.'". And then he proceeded to kiss me. And Morgan managed to snap a picture of it! So, yeah, Robin and I will be tying the knot soon.
The night ended shortly thereafter and the next morning we headed home. We stopped in St. Simmons just for fun and to see the beach--fun fact: St. Simmons beach was the very first beach I ever went to. My dad's best friend was from there and he said it was a tradition in his family for that to be the first beach a person goes to. Anyways, then we headed to Savannah and ate an early dinner on River Street, then headed on home to Athens. The GPS got us extremely lost on the way home, so that was sort of scary. We decided to go the scenic route home (note to self: next time, take the scenic route there not back). We ended up in like the ghetto of Dublin, going down this little road that didn't have street lights. It was the sort of street that, had we been characters in a scary movie, there would have been three or four burly (or scraggly, I'm undecided) homeless men with clubs chasing us. I'm NOT exaggerating.
Well, we finally got out of there and then the GPS took us down this long country road (again, no street lights) and this time we didn't have cell service either. Out of the three of us, not one of us could make a call. And it was a full moon (I'm extremely superstitious). Oh, and we were running on fumes and had been since Dublin. Eventually though, we made it to the end of the long country road, found a gas station, and our cell phones started working again.
Finally, after many, many hours (and a McDonald's trip in which I thought I'd lost my wallet) we arrived home. It was in the seventies when we'd left on Friday and we returned home on Sunday night it was in the forties. Winter came to Georgia while we had been gone! And . . . a bottle of vodka spilled in the trunk so that wasn't fun to clean up in the cold. But we did and the night ended with us busting into our fourth roommates room and telling her of all the weekend's escapades.
So, all in all, first GA/FL game equals SUCCESS!
