This weekend, Adam and I made the 4 1/2 hour trip from Long Island into Pennsylvania for the Penn State 2010 Homecoming. No, neither of us are alumni, but one of my sisters and my dad are and as a perk for being in the Alumni Blue Band Association, they have the option of buying 2 tickets to the homecoming game. Adam and I took up the offer and the other two tickets went to my godfather and his son visiting from North Carolina. It’s always nice to see him because my dad and him have been friends since the second grade and I am bound to hear silly and embarrassing stories about my dad’s childhood. 🙂
The past few weeks/weekends have been quite busy for Adam and I due to work, planning for the wedding and our impending move to Park Slope – it wasn’t really an ideal weekend for traveling to Penn State but since we already bought the tickets, it would be wasteful not to go! To begin with, Adam had a crisis going on at work and we left Manhattan quite late and then we got home and tried to have some semblance of a dinner while Adam continued to work. I then suggested to him that we might as well buy a MiFi (I admit, it’s because I’ve been lusting for one since I heard those existed) so he could work through the evening in the car while I drove. The MiFi is pretty cool, you can buy it at full cost without a contract for $150 and then pay $40 a month for unlimited service. It worked pretty well along Route 80 going through Pennsylvania but there were obviously some pretty big gaping holes in service in a few areas. Unfortunately, our car isn’t outfitted with an AC power converter and he failed to charge his laptop before getting in the car so he only got to do some real work for a few hours of the trip. This meant I did most of the driving and he stayed up until 6am that morning working on bug fixes once we got to State College.
We left Long Island around 10pm Friday and only made it to State College around 3am which meant we missed the free pizza and booze with my dad and his college friends. I went right to bed and, as I mentioned earlier, Adam stayed up to work and then we woke around 10am to try and navigate ourselves to Beaver Stadium for the game while still half asleep. I have to mention that I do not miss living in a dorm at all. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to stay with Jennifer’s boyfriend, Hitesh, who lives on campus because our alternative was sleeping in the RV my dad’s friends rented for the weekend. Both meant uncomfortable sleeping situations and questionable restroom facilities, but at least there was enough room to move around in the apartment.
The game was a huge disappointment and the Nittany Lions lost to Illinois but we still sat there in the boiling sun until the conclusion of the game. The Blue Band, as always, was enjoyable, but I think I was experiencing mild heatstroke because I can’t really remember what they played and only that I took a few snap-shots for Jennifer’s scrapbook of the weekend. Afterwards, my dad did his traditional tailgate, albeit on the smaller side, and we attempted to play an awful game of ring toss interrupted by a few curses and the occasional “I hate this stupid game! Why are we playing this again?” We also visited Hitesh’s tailgate and munched on paneer and chicken marinated in yogurt sauce. We were also treated to the drunken antics of his tailgate neighbors who also reminded me why I chose not to live in Pennsylvania anymore.
We wrapped up the night hanging out with the “Hedgehogs” at the RV made up of my dad’s friends from college. Please don’t ask me where that name comes from because I don’t know, and I’m quite certain they don’t remember either. They held their yearly homecoming meeting, inducted new members into the sacred order of the hedgehog and I think I was assigned the task of creating a web site for everyone and coming up with members only t-shirts. Sunday morning we hopped on over to the RV again for brunch and said our good-byes before heading off back north (but not before we stopped at a RadioShack and purchased an AC converter which promptly blew out our car’s cigarette lighter’s fuse whenever Adam attempted to charge his MacBook!)
It was nice to see everyone but I think I would have also enjoyed staying home instead of spending the time driving just because of everything that’s going on. I know we’ll be attempting to recoup our lost sleeping hours this week!
