The Upstate Life

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

And We're Back

We would've posted a day sooner, but yeah, we were one of the fortunate to have yesterday off due to President Ford's funeral. And how did we spend our extra day off, you ask? By watching Veronica Mars Season 1 of course. Oh, and apparently I wasn't the only one. Don't know if we'll be able to bang out the entire season before VM returns from hiatus, but rest assured, we're damn determined to.

In case you were wondering, we were down in sunny Orlando during our little break to support the Terrapins in the Champs Sports Bowl. It was our first ever bowl trip, and if you've never been to one before, The Upstate Life highly recommends you try it out. Not only was it a lot of fun, but you feel like you're a part of something special when you factor in the incredible gametime atmosphere and supportive, traveling fanbase. We didn't obtain a parking permit in time so we started our own mini-tailgate in the public lot downtown... turns out it wasn't the smartest of ideas since a) no one else was tailgating (they were all at the sold-out stadium lots), and b) at least 2 homeless dudes came up to us. Apparently the Citrus Bowl isn't located in the best of places (think RFK). The Purdue fans that walked by thought it was pretty funny though... an hour later realizing how lame we were, we took the bus over to the stadium and walked around and checked out some real tailgates.

As for the bowl itself, the Terps dominated nearly the entire game which was the first time I've seen Maryland do that all season. Senior QB Sam Hollenbach played the game of his life and rightfully deserved the MVP honors. It was a fitting end to his career and may even have a few NFL looks after his outstanding performance. Oh, and thanks to eBay, our seats were silly: third row on the 35 yard line right behind the Terps bench. Unfortunately, the broker failed to inform us that we would be sitting behind the most irritating woman ever. She was literally drunk the entire time, standing up, and hitting on every old dude sitting around her, with her kid right beside her! What's worse was that she was a Purdue fan, on the Maryland side. Other than that inebriated wench, we had a great time.

After the game was over, we headed down to Church Street to checkout the scene. Think 18th Street but cleaner, less annoying, and cleaner. Coincidentally we wound up at Independent Bar, a place that was like a Black Cat dance night, but on acid. The place was humongous, full of people, and was blasting the likes of Hot Chip and Lady Sovereign over the PA accompanied by visualizations on a huge wall screen. They even had $1 PBRs until midnight, but alas, we were 45 minutes late. After an hour of sipping on drinks and dancing to Hot Hot Heat, we headed back to my grandparents' house (hey, can't beat the free lodging, ya know?). Unfortunately, I somehow missed the ramp to I-4 and wound up in a scary-ass part of Orlando. It literally made Anacostia look like Bethesda. After we amazingly made it out alive, we finally found the interstate and headed back home. Don't think bubby would've been too happy with gunshots through her Avalon.

Posted by Brett at 4:13 PM |