So to follow up my post last time, which I'm embarrassed to say was about three weeks ago, I'll talk about the Oakland Raiders game Marc and I attended last weekend. In our San Francisco Bucket List, Marc added that he would like to try to visit every major sports venue in the Bay Area. Wow. I sort of like sports and all, but do you know how many major teams there are here? There's the professionals, sure, but there's also huge university teams too! I'm going to have a lot of sports paraphernalia in my closet...

Tailgating at the Raiders game was a different experience than the one we had at the 49ers/Cowboys game. Oakland fans are *very* passionate about their team and let's just say that the demographics in Oakland are a little different than those in San Francisco.


We met up with a group of Marc's coworkers around 9:00a and had amazing breakfast sandwiches, music, pulled pork, baked beans, and tons of sides. It was a day of  good eating (and we discovered that the next day was a day of apparent food poisoning...the culprit of which has yet to be identified). We had a great time talking with friends, eating great food, and of course, serious people-watching.

He headed in to the game around 1:00p and got our full pat down along with everyone else. We sat down in our seats and prepared to enjoy an exciting game between the Raiders and the Patriots.

It was a beautiful afternoon and we were enjoying the game for the first two quarters. We aren't fans of either team, but we cheered for Oakland because we aren't stupid.


About halfway through the game, the group of young people next to us (who had been slightly drunk when they arrived at the game and had proceeded to get more so as the game progressed) started to pick on a group of men sitting in front/diagonal from us. Apparently one of the men had checked out a girl in the other group and this was not OK. We were kind of stuck right in the middle of this and Marc tried in vain to convince the increasingly belligerent young man to his right to calm down and enjoy the game.


But as luck would have it - and maybe as twelve-too-many Bud Light's would have it - the group beside Marc and the men in front of me had had enough of this and were going to take care of it right then and there.


::Chaos::


The young men next to Marc literally jumped over us and onto the men in front of me. Marc immediately covered me with his body and I immediately went hysterical. A fight ensued that thankfully did not leave anyone badly injured. The police (finally) came and eventually ushered all of the participants out of the stadium. Once I stopped shaking about 45 minutes later, everything was OK.


Unbeknownst to me at the time, Marc and I had been pushed around a little more than we'd thought. I'm going to show you something. I blurred it out mostly, but this is a bruise from the incident (one of five like it) on the back of my leg.

I didn't even know I had been bruised up until the next day (when I'd recovered enough from said food poisoning to take a shower). It's understandably uncomfortable since these bruises are all over the backs and sides of my legs.


I think those bruises make me really thankful that 1) Nothing worse happened to anyone involved in the fight or to us and 2) That Marc was there when this happened. He had returned about ten minutes before from grabbing us a couple waters from concessions.


So all that to say: Going to a Raiders game was interesting and I'll definitely never want to do it again. I think I saw just enough of Oaktown to keep me satisfied for a good, long while.