What a difference a week makes

After my previous post, and asking a few other people, namely my Father who had been to a Super Bowl before, I decided to go. I figured I would be happier at the end of the year (10 years, 20 years, etc.) that I went to the game rather than save the money. Now I can cross one thing off my "bucket" list.

All in all, it was a great day, and really an experience I won't forget. I left my house at 8:30 am to drive to Eric's house which is about an hour away. I got there at about 9:30 and we went to breakfast, then picked up some stuff at Publix. At around 11:15 we decided to leave his house and head over to the stadium since the parking lots opened at 11:00. Being that we both went to the Pro Bowl the week before, we knew there was really nothing of interest in the "Fan Experience." As we got closer to the stadium, there was absolutely no traffic to speak of. We got to the parking lot, and just hung out for quite a while. The rules from the NFL were originally no tailgating, then they changed to limited tailgating with no tents and no grills. We watched as the parking lot filled up more, and many people started arriving around 1:00. I think there were two ticket-holder lanyard vendors for every person in the parking lot. We did purchase those and the program in the parking lot. The lanyards were just as good as the ones inside, plus they included a pin. The programs, I came to find out, and a different cover than the ones inside. The picture was the same, the ones inside had some metallic printing. Oh well, everything else I have proves I was at the game.

As we headed inside at around 3:00, we went through the four layers of security, this time with an added metal detector (which did not pick up the batteries Eric had in his pocket). They were giving away free Pepsi Max inside the fan experience. We hung out for a bit, watched the back of Daughtry, and then went to the store, where I got an overpriced embroidered t-shirt. We then walked around the 100 and 400 levels of the stadium, while taking pictures, including pictures of the CBS broadcast, and enjoying the crowd. We got to our seats and there was a Bridgestone bag with a towel inside attached to every seat. More and more of the crowd made their way to the seats and of course, every seat was filled. We noticed how the stadium was almost divided between Saints and Colts fans, each on their respective sides, however once everyone was seated, the Saints fans really seemed to way outnumber the Colts fans. We were sitting in a Saints section.

Once Queen Latifah came out to sing "America the Beautiful," everyone stood up, I don't think anyone sat down again until about half-time, after that everyone stood up again. The stadium was louder than I had ever heard it before. After one of the touchdowns, the stands were shaking. I told Eric the only time I had felt that before was when the Dolphins won their one game of the 1-15 season. The crowd was definitely into the game, and that made for a much better experience than the Pro Bowl where pretty much nobody cared (even the players).

The half-time show was very cool, and it was neat watching how they construct and de-construct the stage. We were also wondering how much they must have spent on that stage for it to probably never be used again.

The Saints were very unimpressive during the first half, but they came to play in the second half, which made the crowd even louder. The whole day was truly an experience. Although we didn't hang around to see the trophy get awarded, everything else about the day is something I'll remember for a long time to come. I'm going to try to post pictures (and a video of the fly-over) tonight. The only other thing I can say is that I don't think I need to hear "Who Dat" anymore in my lifetime.

You can read about Eric's take on the day here and here