Part II: “Remember the Rose Bowl…”

“…we’ll win then!”

Although I have sang this phrase of our fight song many times throughout my college career, I never really understood its significance until I woke up on game day!

As I donned my red and houndstooth attire, it really hit me:  we were about to go watch Alabama play in the Rose Bowl for the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.  This was a feat that we had came close to a few times, but until last year, we never even made it to the SEC Championship game.  Now, we were about to witness history and unlike our last National Championship, I am old enough to remember and enjoy it.  Let me tell you, even though it was 6:00 am, I was as happy as a clam!

Why so early you ask?  Well, since we had student tickets, we had to go pick them up at the Rose Bowl aquatic center in Pasadena at 9:00 am.  Instead of grabbing a cab, we opted to go with the Metro Line just to make it easier on our pockets.  This definitely required some major prior planning on my part because all of the connections were timed, so if we missed one we’d have to wait 30 more minutes for the next one.  Thankfully their website had a great “planner” that helped me plan everything out.    This was our “Game Day” section of the itinerary that I made:

Yes, that is the BCS logo I put in the background of our itinerary and yes, I’m OCD…I can’t help it!  Like I said, Alex laughed at my booklet of information for this trip and settled only for a digital copy on his Blackberry ;)

So, the shuttle from our hotel to the airport was right on time and so was the one from LAX to Union Station.  When we got to Union Station, we bought our tickets and got waited for the train.  As we waiting, we got to enjoy the beautiful skyline!

Right after I took this picture, I was checking our itinerary on my BRAND NEW Blackberry, and someone bumped into me and I dropped it on the concrete.  The case I had on it popped off and at first glance everything seemed fine.  As I was putting the case back on, Alex pointed out that the bottom corner of the screen had shattered….I was sick.

The whole ride to Pasadena, I stressed over my phone.  Alex, being the amazing guy he is, does what he always does and reassured me that everything would be fine and that he was sure they’d fix it for me (they wouldn’t, but that response appeased me at the time.)  Before we knew it, we had arrived in Pasadena.  The website told me we could catch the Pasadena Arts bus, but we waited for a bit and when it didn’t seem to be coming, we decided we’d just walk because the website said it was in walking distance – HA!  I was back in panic mode because I didn’t know how long it was going to take us and although we were using the VZ Navigator on my phone, we really had no clue where we were going.  We were starving and Alex wanted to stop, but I was not about to miss out on good tickets so we treked along.

It was a good 2 miles of walking at least with the last mile being down a huge hill with no sidewalk.  I know I’ve mentioned before that I wear heels often, but after the pain I went through wearing my stiletto boots to the SEC game, I was not about to make that mistake again.  The only problem is, I’m so used to being on my toes barefoot or in shoes, when I wear flats for an extended period of time, I get shin splints.  Being a dancer, I’ve dealt with them many times and the worst thing you can do is walk a couple of miles.  Sweet Alex was checking on me every step of the way, and definitely kept me going :)  The scenery was beautiful though and we even got to see where that had everything still set up from the Rose Bowl parade.  It also helped to see these every little bit

When we finally got there, an hour before the ticket window was supposed to open, there was already a ridiculous line!

After the gates opened, it only took about 45 minutes for us to get up to the front to pick up our tickets.  I felt much better having these babies in my hand!

Then we headed toward the stadium to see what all was going on, and I spotted this:

Although I work for the football program, live across from the complex and see the truck ALL THE TIME, it was cool to see it in this setting, so I had to get a picture.  I totally wasn’t ready and I could see anything, but ignore me and look at the awesome equipment truck parked beside the BCS sign :)

Then, in the distance, we saw it…

Note the banner placed right in front of the stadium sign….I LOVE it!

We were hoping to find some food around the stadium, but no such luck.  After discussing all of our possibilities, we realized we had to make the trek back to Old Towne Pasadena.  Although my legs were still aching, my hunger pains were worse so we headed back UPHILL for the first mile.  When we got into the town, we stopped at the grocery store when I saw this

   

Being the indecisive couple that we are, we walked up and down the street several times before we found a cute little bistro that had some open tables.  We had an amazing breakfast there:  I had a ham and cheese omlette and Alex had a breakfast plate.  It was so good and it was nice to sit down!

After we finished eating, we decided to hang around town for a bit.  The only thing they had near the stadium was the ESPN tailgate party and we weren’t too keen on paying 35 dollars just to get in so we thought we’d have more fun in town.  As we were walking by one of the little candy shops, I saw this and thought it was too cute

The Alabama one was definitely much cuter than the “Longhorn” next to it.  I told Alex I wanted one before we left, but of course I forgot.  Oh well!

We were supposed to meet up with some friends at a local bar for the Alumni’s pre-game party, but the bar didn’t open until the time we had planned on heading back so we didn’t bother with that.  We did however hit up Bar Celona to watch the pre-game stuff on TV.  It was hot so it was nice to go inside and sit in the air conditioning and rest our legs for a bit!

We were obviously dreading the walk back, but we decided we better go ahead and get it over with.  So we walked the 2 miles back, still in pain, but as soon as we saw this again, the excitement took over the pain!

When we were here earlier in the day, I had looked at getting some shirts, but wasn’t quite sold on them and decided to look at the many makeshift souvenir shops in Old Towne, but when I didn’t find anything there, I decided to go back and get the ones by the stadium.  Of course, by the time I got back they were all sold out of my size :(  We went to every stand, waited in line only to be told they were out.  We gave up and decided to go ahead and get our programs (we lucked out and both got ones with the Rose Bowl covers as opposed to the other 3 images) and head into the stadium since it was about an hour and a half until game time.

Once we got inside, we found a shirt in my size, got some “Championship” hot dogs from the concession stand and found a place on a rock to sit and eat.  I usually have to be in the mood to eat hot dogs, but since it was way past lunch time, they were really good! :)

Then, we found our way to our seats and got settled in for the game.  I’m going to save the game stuff for the next post, but I do want to leave you with the view from our seats.  Amazing right?

Next up:  It’s game time!!! :)