When I found out what the schedule of the Oakland Raiders was, I got excited. They had a Monday Night Football game. I knew that I was able to go to my first Raider home game, but I never thought Home-opener, Monday Night against our rivals. Holy cow. This is a dream come true.
So the weekend was finally here, I got on a plane, all alone. The reason I say "alone" is because I am a female. And you all must be saying, wow, a female going to Oakland all by herself. She's crazy. Not crazy, just confident. So I fly all the way from Florida to Oakland, through Denver, Ha Ha, and when I get to Oakland Airport, the excited feeling kicks in. I'm here...WOW!
I take a shuttle to my hotel which is only about 1/2 mile from the coliseum and I check-in. Then I call a few people that I met on Myspace, and have known them through there for about a year, and tell them that I arrived. At this point, I take a cab to Ricky's for the Raider Rally. What a blast, I met everyone on my myspace page, everyone from the Black Hole and more. Fans from all over the country and beyond. Connecticut, Utah, North Dakota, Washington, North Carolina, Delaware and more...It's truly a RAIDER NATION!
We all stay until about 11pm, and after meeting Phil Villapiano, and listening to RaiderHed all night it was time to head back to the hotel. The people I was sitting with gave me a ride home since they were at my hotel. They were from Utah, great people.
The next day everyone was supposed to meet at Denny's at 10am, which was around the block and across Hegenberger Rd, which is quite a large road, so we could line up for our tailgate convoy. I ended up walking to Denny's, by myself. Not scared at all, even with everything I heard about Oakland, I just didn't get that vibe. And trust me, with my husband being a Police Officer, he's taught me everything I need to know about what is weird and what to look out for. I ended meeting up with someone I met the night before, a friend from myspace, and we walked over the coliseum.
At 12pm, with all of our cars, about 8 of them, maybe 10, they opened the gates to the parking lot, 2 hours early I might add. We ended up tailgating for 7 hours and I ate all different kinds of food and drank all different kinds of drinks. What a day!
This article was written to everyone that thinks Oakland is a horrible, rotten city. Everyone I met was great to me, I didn't feel scared walking around at all. Now, I was near the hotel on Edes and Hegenberger, but I also was up at Vella's LockerRoom. Great people, great times. Yeah, we lost the football game, but nothing can take away the experiences that I had that weekend.
We're going to send you the most entertaining Oakland Raiders articles, videos, and podcasts from around the web.
2 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete