Let's just get this out in the open: I love Katie Warner.
A lot.
Quick Background: I worked with Katie at SHC in Orem. We met when Bry and I first moved to Utah County right before he started law school in 2010. Katie's husband was a year ahead of Bry in law school so she was an awesome source of advice as to what I could expect during that first dreaded year. Thankfully she shared my freaked-out feelings about the "Law Partners" group that the school encourages all the spouses to join (it's like relief society/book club/daycare all meshed into one). That's how I knew she and I would be great friends.
So when she told me on Sunday (2/16) that her company was sending her out here for work in TWO DAYS---I was SUPER excited.
She arrived pretty late on Tuesday (2/18) and didn't get to her (awesome) hotel at Times Square until 9:45 PM, so I met her there and we enjoyed the view for a bit until we went to dinner.
Hello, Roger Federer.
Fate would have it that Katie's hotel was literally adjacent to Junior's, so naturally we went there for dinner.
Afterwards we walked around Times Square and actively avoided the cracked-out Elmo's/Spidermen/Batmen/Naked Cowboy.
WEDNESDAY
Katie and I both had to work (boo) but that evening I went back to the city and she and I explored 5th Avenue, Central Park, and FAO Schwarz.
At FAO Katie was able to find this adorable workbench for her handsome little guy:
This isn't her actual child. C'mon now...
It was originally $150 and she got it for $15!
(Plus the hassle of getting FAO to deliver it to her hotel, then her having to fly it home...)
Regardless, it was quite the score.
Later that night we went to Washington Square Park and met up with Bryant once he was out of class and the three of us went to dinner.
THURSDAY
Katie has an amazing boss who let her stay in the city for an extra day and I was able to take the day off so we could actually see the city during daylight hours.
We made it to the 9/11 Memorial right when they opened at 10:00 am, which was definitely the best time to be there.
North Tower Pool:
South Tower Pool:
We then wandered over to Wall Street
Then we went to Tiffany's Wall Street location
I'll take 2, please.
The Charging Bull
Katie made some friends while we were there that were kind enough to take a picture for us.
And yes, I am very mature with my picture taking.
Battery Park looking out at the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island
Brooklyn Bridge
Lower Manhattan
New York City Supreme Court
We wandered up to Katz's Deli for some amazing pastrami sandwiches
Obviously guys like this place
After that we walked up to Veniero's and ate some delicious pastries.
Our last stop was at Grand Central Station
Katie had the pleasure of dealing with rush hour traffic while she tried to get from Midtown to JFK to fly back to Utah. (Poor kid!)
Well, the Super Bowl has come and gone. I don't need to remind you that the game didn't exactly go our way.
But I will anyway.
STUPID.WORTHLESS.BRONCOS.
(WHEW! OK. Moving on.)
On my Momma's birthday, February 1st, Bryant and I had to venture into Manhattan to go pick our tickets up from the price gouging vulture ticket broker that we purchased them from.
They just happened to pick a hotel that was amongst the madness at Super Bowl Boulevard:
Herald Square (34th Street-Macy's) was as packed as Times Square is on a good day
And I was pleased to see that Macy's was in the football spirit with their window decorations. (Maybe they sell football equipment now, who knows?)
This was the ESPN location, close to the Empire State Building
We eventually made it to the hotel to pick up our tickets. Bryant had to show roughly 12 forms of ID and proof of payment, but we got them! I immediately put them deep inside my purse, zipped it up, and was EXTRA aware of everyone around me. (Because naturally they'd assume I'm carrying Super Bowl tickets...)
Once we made it home, we finally felt comfortable taking them out to look at them:
SUPER BOWL SUNDAY
February 2, 2014
Saturday night Bryant and I both had a hard time going to sleep. It really felt like Christmas Eve!
(Let's pretend for now that the Broncos didn't get totally slaughtered.)
That morning we got dressed in our winter attire courtesy of my Momma. (You'll soon find out why this matters) Early predictions were that this would officially be the coldest Super Bowl on record. I wasn't about to freeze to death, so my wonderful Momma mailed us the snow pants. (Thanks Momma!)
Alexis
Bryant
TOP:
Thermals, two shirts, winter coat, head
wrap, gloves
TOP:
Three shirts, light jacket, winter coat, gloves
BOTTOM:
Thermals, jeans, snow pants, two sets of
socks, snow boots
BOTTOM:
Thermals, jeans, snow pants, two sets of
socks, regular shoes
Fun Fact: The day of the game the weather was near 50°F for most of the day. Toward the end of the game it dropped down to about 37°F with 76% humidity. (When you ride the subway, you definitely don't need SNOW PANTS. We were a little overheated early on. More on that in a moment.)
We took Willis to 'Happy Dogs' to be boarded for the night since we had no clue how late we'd be. We ended up leaving our apartment around 12:45 PM (Kickoff was 6:25 PM.)
From attending the Saints vs Jets game earlier this year, we learned the hard way that when you take the New Jersey Transit from Penn Station, the lines to buy tickets can easily eat at least an hour of your time. Being the brilliant thing that I am, I went to Penn Station the week before the game and bought our tickets. The lady that helped me at the ticket counter said, "OOH! Honey you're SMART. Those outta towners won't know WHAT hit 'em when they get here. That day is gonna be CRAZY. You make sure to be here EARLY, you hear? OOOH! The SUPA BOWL!"
We arrived at Penn Station to the longest ticket line I'd ever seen. We were able to walk straight to the first train that was departing at 1:35 PM and grab a good seat.
To get to the Meadowlands, you have to take a train from Penn Station to Secaucus Junction which puts you in New Jersey. Once you arrive, you should be able to go through and transfer to another train that takes you directly to the Meadowlands.
When we arrived, we were suddenly met with a huge wall of people inside the tiny corridor. We knew that they would be doing TSA style security screens, which is why we left our apartment SO early, but I'm convinced the fools at Secaucus Junction found out the Super Bowl was being in held in New Jersey THAT DAY.
We stood in the same spot for roughly 20 minutes when everyone started to get really irritated. And SWEATY. Everyone was dressed for a night football game in NYC in February when we are suddenly squished in a tiny room with hundreds of other sweaty people with the heat going FULL FORCE on us.
The first few minutes fans wound chant SEA-HAWKS or LET'S GO BRONCOS. After a while it turned to JERSEY SUCKS, CHRISTIE SUCKS, SEA-CAUCUS, AC! AC! AC!
(Bry lovingly told me at one point that my face was melting off, which it was. My hair also went from curled to straight and sweaty.)
People started peeling their clothes off:
And this was a very common sight:
When we were getting dressed that morning, Bryant kept going back and forth on whether or not to wear the snow pants. I was very insistent that he would end up regretting it when he froze to death at the game. Let's just say he was NOT happy with me while we were sweating to death. And I was REALLY regretting all my layers.
I took some video of the angry mob:
After literally ONE HOUR of being stuck in purgatory, sweating our guts out, and having multiple people pass out from the heat, we made it roughly 40 yards of shuffling to where the lines split for people who had bags or no bags. (NFL rules state that you can only have a clear, vinyl bag that's 12"x12")
Remember how I joked that the staff seemed unprepared? Look closely at the yellow signs:
Someone in the marketing department forgot to put arrows on the signs so someone had used a SHARPIE to draw them on. (Seriously?!) This was also the dreaded spot because it was where two of the major lines converged to go through security where everyone had to show their train and Super Bowl ticket. (People here are pretty aggressive, but you should see how nasty they can be when they're desperate to escape the heat.)
After 1.5 hours in what should have taken 20 minutes, we made it to the second train!
GLORY-GLORY-HALLELUJA!
(celebratory faces below)
Incase you care, which I'm sure only our mothers actually do,
we made the NEW YORK TIMES!
Well...Bryant did. You can see my little smurf headwrap in the picture:
Just when we thought we were out of the woods -or furnace- we arrived at Metlife Stadium and were then ushered through what felt like cattle gates to eventually get to all the security pavilions.
We were pretty dang happy to be there!
Once inside the pavilion, we had to go through a maze to get to a pat-down and metal detector.
(We did get to listen to some mad-beats by the DJ they had stationed inside.)
After getting through security they ushered us out of the pavilion and gave fans of each team a rally towel of either green or orange as well as a little rubber wrist band (which Edgar has thoroughly enjoyed chasing around our apartment.)
Finally inside the stadium gates!
The wonderful flag twirlers from Rutgers warming up who provided the pre-game entertainment:
And finally, the heavens parted!
We made it to our seats at exactly 4:30 PM.
3h 45min of travel time to go roughly 13 miles.
(Admit it, when you read that we left our apartment at 12:45 PM you thought we were nuts...)
On every seat they had placed "Warm Welcome"Seat Cushions.
Here's an inventory of the goodies inside:
We had about an hour to kill before kickoff and we were starving, so we went and got some food:
Chicken Finger Basket: $13
Souvenir Drink: $8
We decided to just share the food as a "snack" to tide us over until halftime or so. During the game we never left our seats so on the way out we were starving so we grabbed two pretzels for $12.
Pre-game warm ups.
This outfit made my day:
John Elway and Terrell Davis
The Fox Pre-Game Show crew
Before the game the marching bands from Syracuse and Rutgers performed
Queen Latifah singing "America The Beautiful"
The section that we were in was roughly 85% Bronco fans.
This dude made up for it.
Kids: Don't Do Drugs.
Finally they announced the teams!
Seahawks:
Broncos:
I obviously only cared about the Broncos, so that's all I filmed:
The National Anthem, performed by Renée Fleming
The fly over was pretty awesome as well
The coin toss
Opening Kickoff!
If you watched the game, you know it was all downhill from there.
But here are a few plays from the first half:
During the 2-Minute Warning before halftime the stadium announcers instructed everyone to please stay in their seats during halftime since "we are the lighting" for it and that they wanted to break the record for the largest video board.
We were instructed to take out our glamorous beanies and put them on and not to pull the tab from the front until authorized to do so.
Waiting for the network to come back from commercial:
Here is what I recorded of the show:
Don't you worry Bronco fans, I did happen to catch a picture of their ONLY touchdown
(Tara, sorry your boy Orange Julius let you down. DT came through for me me though!)
Here was the successful 2-point conversion by Wes Welker
And here is the last play we watched:
We left our seats from the 3rd level when there was roughly 3:00 min left in the game.
FINAL SCORE: 43-8
Ugh. Talk about a depressing night.
As I mentioned before, we were starving so we quickly grabbed our pretzels and began our descent down the mountain. We thought we'd make one of the first trains out with all the other sad Bronco fans and be home in no time.
Then I saw this:
Chaos. Complete CHAOS.
Back to our original signage problem we encountered at Secaucus Junction: there were NO signs, markers, ANYTHING telling the crowd where to go. People just squished together and started moving in one general direction.
Supposedly they were funneling people from the opposite side of the stadium through crowd gates to get to our side where the trains were located. We had another chaotic moment when their line had to mesh with our volcanic mass of humans fighting to get into another section of crowd gates. Once we were inside and walking through the zig-zag pattern, we could see random people try and hop the gates to cut up to where we were, at which point the security would toss them back over.
(What was creepy is the people jumping and the guards were silent while this was happening, like the person thought they were being stealthy and the guard seemed to be saying, "Really? Nice try.")
Our cattle gates wound us back through the security pavilion where they had cops galore watching everyone try and squish through two doors to get to the train platform.
This was our view on the platform looking back toward the crowd still trying to get into the gate line:
I get anxiety all over again just remembering the ordeal
We made it back to Secaucus and had to make the transfer, but this time it wasn't nearly as bad. There were guards and staff with huge signs pointing and yelling what platform to go to.
Obviously they weren't loving the hundreds of tweets and news articles talking about how bad the situation was there earlier.
On the train departing from Secaucus we all climbed aboard only to find that all the seats had been taken by commuters, not Super Bowl fans.
So...we got to awkwardly stand in the aisle and stare at the tired commuters.
And take creeper pictures of them
We made it back to our apartment a little after midnight, but again...we were hungry.
And sad.
So we went to Kelloggs, the 24 hour diner by our apartment, and drowned our sorrows in breakfast food and a BLT.
I've had several non-football loving people ask me if I thought the whole thing was worth it.
Obviously it sucked the Broncos lost (Poor Bry.)
Getting to the game was a nightmare I won't soon forget...
BUT:
I would do the whole thing over again in a heartbeat!
The atmosphere in the city and at the game was amazing. It was surreal to think that a record setting 111.5 million people were watching the game I was at. The halftime show was awesome. I got a fancy seat cushion filled with freebies. And even when your team loses, it's always more enjoyable to watch them in person.
