New Year's and Papajohns.com Bowl '09

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

It's been 4 days since we returned from our Birmingham trip and I'm still torn exactly how to describe it. So, I'll let a colleague of mine's words sum it up, "I hope you wrote all that down, because it deserves to be in a bestseller!" I wish I could write down every crazy, funny (and there were lots of them) thing that happened on this trip, but I would be writing (and you'd be reading) for hours. There is no way this can fully capture it, but I'll give it a shot. (And, I'll add that I'm watching the BCS Championship game as I write this...ROLL TIDE!!)

We arrived in Birmingham on New Year's Eve and were surprisingly pleased. The hotel was very nice with the exception that it sat at the very bottom of a VERY steep hill that we made a LOT of trips up and down. (Yep, it was steep...how do I know? I tumbled down it on New Year's Day after catching my boot heel on a tree limb and rolling my ankle! Skinned my knee like a 5 year old! The doorman graciously told me that it happens "all the time" after ensuring I was okay. I'm sure he laughed like crazy when I got on the elevator. Glenn asked what I thought the handrail on the sidewalk was there for.... Hindsight is 20/20.) Anyway, back to the last day of 2009.....

I had checked out restaurants online in the weeks before the trip so we'd have some reviews/recognizable names. About three blocks (UP that steep hill going, DOWN it coming back) was an area knows as Five Points South. It was literally five roads converging into a circle and had lots of restaurants, shops, a fountain and a gorgeous Methodist church at the very center. Glenn and I headed to look for the first place we wanted to try, Surin West. Oh-My-Goodness!!! We love Thai and we love sushi so we couldn't decide at first which to get. Then, we ordered two rolls. Then we ordered two more AND an order of Angel Rolls (think crabmeat wontons). I love some sushi, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Surin West sushi! We both agreed we'd never had it anywhere else near as good. (So good we'd go back to Birmingham just to eat here!) Afterwards we were (overly stuffed) in need of a walk, so we checked out Five Points South and its most unusually interesting fountain ....before stopping for a (free!) concert by a 80s/90s cover band from Canada called U.S. They were awesome and played a lot of songs we knew. We met the drummer and he was a very nice guy.

As we were now in the CST time zone, everyone else we knew (well almost everyone) was texting and messaging us "Happy New Year" while it was only 11:00 for us. That meant we "rang it in" twice! 2010 is going to be such a great year it had to have TWO midnights!

New Year's Day was COLD. How cold?? VERY COLD!! I think all those UConn people brought the artic air from up north with them or something. We had lunch, with some friends from Columbia we happened to run into, at a Mexican place that had good food, but was totally unprepared for 25,000 Gamecocks. Overnight, Birmingham became garnet and black...it was crazy!! And, the city acted like they had no clue! Restaurants were understaffed, food ran out...I think you get the picture on that! Five Points South hosted a street festival and pep rally for both teams. The Gamecocks were definitely in the majority. We even upstaged "Papa" John. (Do we look like we were freezing??)

As soon as Spurrier, who promised (and delivered if you watched) a "show" at the game on Saturday, finished riling up the crowd, we tried to eat at a local BBQ place. It was already a long wait, so we decided to get in the car and venture out. We'd heard about another area called Lakeview. Again, interesting!! It was a handful of restaurants and this huge (mansion-sized), empty, haunted-looking, run-down house. It was very strange. Well, we finally made it into Golden Rule (think Maurice's) for BBQ....YUM! But, again way underprepared for a large group of out of towners. The funniest thing of this dinner was that I noticed police lights out the window while waiting on the food. It was an escort for our team bus. They were brining the team (anyone else read our players exploits in Columbia and see why this might be a mistake??) to this place called On Tap, the "official bar" for the game. We laughed that there would go the game because our players wouldn't be able to play on Saturday. (Okay, I can't say that they got in any trouble or anything, but I did watch them play --or not play -- on Saturday and it kind of made you wonder.....). The rest of Saturday was spent doing what we do best --- watching college football.

New Year's Day was cold, but Saturday was even colder! (I thought I'd never get warm again!) We had to bundle up for the game -- jeans, two pairs of socks, turtleneck, coat, scarf, mittens, skull cap, etc. ---and it was still cold! Our friends, John and Kim, drove down on Saturday morning and were going to meet us for tailgating. Well, none of us took into account unorganized traffic, ghetto surroundings and crazy parking. Glenn and I went ahead and headed out early, thankfully. We sat on one road into the stadium for an hour before parking and believe me it was not a pretty view out the Yukon windows. I've seen poverty and I've seen pitiful living situations, but nothing like this. We saw a house with 2 trees (yes, real tree trunks!!) built in...the siding was cut out around them. We saw a series of shacks with apparently no electricity where the adults were huddled around a can fire while the two kids (probably about 5 and 10) held signs "Parking $5" to try and get people to park in their dirt patch out front of the house. We saw housed falling in that people still lived in. Words can not do justice to the area around Legion Field.

Surrounding the parking lots were public housing projects. That made for an interesting tailgating experience. I say tailgating, but we were the end car and they didn't allow "tail"-gating, so we "side"-gated. We had a huge breakfast so we just had snacks and planned to eat when we got in the game. (HAHAHA!!! Had we not learned anything yet about prepardness??) And, let me add that in addition to this wonderful view, there were no trashcans OR --more importantly --- porta potties in the lot!! John and Cathleen from Columbia came by as we packed up and we all walked to the stadium together. Now, when we get there the lines at the gate are lined up. I mean LINED up. (Some folks later said it took them 45 minutes to an hour in line to get inside the gate). Glenn and I neither one have lots of patience for lines so we decided there had to be a shorter one....there was. It was the UConn will call gate. No purse check, no line, chick with gold teeth smiled and barely looked at our tickets. Took us about 2 seconds to get inside. We picked up Papa John commerative Hot Wheel type cars, Garnet pom poms and headed to our seats.....up 56 rows but with a great view of the field.

We only had a few minutes before kick off so we settled in (luckily these were the old crowded in bench seats for body heat purposes, unluckily they were metal...whew that was cold!) to watch the Huskie taunting Cocky and the Gamecocks upstage poor Papa John yet again! At the end of the first quarter I went out to the restrooms (remember there were none earlier) which were dark and gross. (Toto, we are NOT at Williams-Brice anymore!) And, let me stop here to explain that Alabama obviously does not adhere to Surgeon General warnings and believes that you should have the right to smoke and to smoke anywhere you would like...including hotels, restaurants and football stadiums! Yes, the concourse was filled with smoke. I texted Glenn while I was out there about this and he informed me that yes he knew because the guy two rows in front of us had "lit up". Food and drink lines were long and wrapped. I saw a guy get hit (literally hit!) by a golf cart as he tried to go into the Men's room. By second quarter (and when we were really getting hungry) the stadium had run out of food, coffee and hot chocolate. Oh, and did I add that the game was NOT going well?? So, you have 25,000 mad, hungry and cold Gamecocks. It was no wonder the place started clearing at half time! The family next to us had the following conversation before gathering their things and leaving:

Husband: I say we leave this mess and go watch the rest of it in a bar where its warm.

Wife: Where is this bar? Out there in Crackville where you stopped to go to the bathroom on the way in?

I hope they made it back home safely.

We left during third quarter to make sure we still had a car, I mean, beat the crowd and finally get something to eat (our first dinner of the night). We went back to Five Points South to Chez FonFon, a French bistro. Best. Lobster. Bisque. Ever. We'd go back to eat here again. Of course, they might prefer us not to since Glenn tried to burn the place down! He set his napkin on the table. It fell over. It landed in the candle the hostess had lit 2 minutes earlier. Then he couldn't get it to go out. I laughed until I cried. The waiter asked if everything was "okay" and we could barely explain what happened. Meanwhile, Kim and John were texting that they had left, too and were going to a Latin/American restaurant they found online a little later. So, we ended up meeting them there (it was fab....in this lovely neighborhood). This time around Glenn and I shared paella (which I *heart* and can never find/haven't gotten brave enough to try to make). Afterwards we listened to this really, cute Alabama countryish singer. It was his first performance ever and he was so good. We were glad to have Kim and John there to spend time with and share in the post-game misery of "losing".

John, Kim, Glenn and me --- post game

We wound up our trip by heading back to the great state of South Carolina on Sunday (stopping at our travel place --Cracker Barrel -- for lunch). Although it was a wonderful trip and a fantastic time, I don't think home has EVER looked so good!