So, say you're in a long distance relationship. You lived in the same city as your girlfriend for quite some time, developed a pretty strong relationship, but when it came time for you to go off to school, she had to stay behind because she had a good job. You always hoped you'd move back home after school to be close to her again, but the long distance thing seemed to be working, and since the job market sucked back home, you stayed in the city where you went to school and found a good enough job yourself.
The long distance thing wasn't optimal, but since the girls in the city where you're living are pretty lame anyway, and dating pretty much sucks, you figured you'd keep it going until you felt it wasn't working anymore. When she made business trips that were close enough for you to drive to meet her, you did it, but all the problems that come with a "real" relationship all of a sudden show up, and after a couple days together, you're glad that you were able to go back to your separate homes and get back into the comfort of the long distance relationship.
That is, of course, until after a prolonged time away from each other, she invites you to hop on a plane and meet her for a quick weekend during one of her business trips. And when you get there, not only is she not anywhere near as attractive or fun to be around as you remember from the past, but you also find out that she's cheated on you with someone in that town where you're visiting her. And everyone there knows it. And the whole time you're there, you have to hear about it from EVERYONE.
Sure, some people are sympathetic. But most of them are just assholes, and laugh at you to your face. You try to put on a happy face and pretend it doesn't bother you, but there's only so much you can take. So you head back to your hotel, watch football, and wait for the next morning when you can get on a plane to go back home and leave it all behind you.
Ladies and gentlemen ... welcome to my weekend trip to Eugene to watch my Cal Golden Bears football team play the Oregon Ducks.
Below is the good, bad and ugly from the trip...
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The good: buying a case for my new camera in Portland and not having to pay sales tax.
The bad: realizing that I could have also bought my camera in Oregon (which I only had to buy in the first place because I left my old one in a cab the day before Laef and Allison's wedding) and saved about $20 on sales tax.
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The good: I didn't get a speeding ticket driving from Portland to Eugene, although about a dozen other people that I saw pulled over weren't so lucky.
The bad: what should have been a two-hour drive took us just over three hours, thanks to hitting prime commute traffic. I guess driving on I-5 sucks no matter what city/state you're in.
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The good: After 15 years, I finally got to visit Rob in Eugene.
The bad: I didn't arrive in time to show up to one of his book signings and give him shit.
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The good: Friday night dinner at Soriah, where Rob, Lynne, Annett and I got to act like adults, talking about grown-up stuff.
The bad: Saturday night dinner at Red Robin, nursing a surprisingly bad sunburn and an extremely bruised ego, surrounded by happy Oregon fans.
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The good: We hit the legendary Rennie's for drinks on Friday night, a bar that I've heard mentioned a million times but never had the pleasure of visiting. It was way less of a dive than it had been made out to be. And we met some of the crazy lacrosse girls that Lynne spends so much time with, who incidentally, went to high school about 30 seconds away from our apartment in Carlsbad.
The bad: we almost died on the way home thanks to some asshole who decided to try to merge into us when their lane ended.
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The good: I got a taste of what it's like in a real college town on Friday night. On our way to Rennie's, we came upon another bar and the Oregon band was out in front of it playing their fight song to a huge crowd of people. It was a moment that perfectly encapsulated why I like college sports better than pro sports.
The bad: I heard that damn fight song about 8,000 times during the game the next day.
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The good: breakfast and Bloody Marys at Peabody's on Saturday morning with Lynne.
The bad: despite having a backpack full of beer, Lynne feeling she needs to order a beer for the road from the bar, and thus, we miss the shuttle to the game and end up walking for like 25 minutes.
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The good: tailgating before the game, first with the lacrosse girls and then briefly with Allison, Missy and her friends.
The bad: walking through the parking lot in Cal gear, from one tailate location to the other, was seriously like walking a gauntlet. Most of the Oregon fans only dished out some good-natured razzing, but still, I've never felt like such an outsider before.
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The ugly: Oregon 42, Cal 3. I still don't even know what to say about it. The game was painful to watch; despite everyone thinking Cal would win relatively easily, I told anyone who would listen that I didn't have a good feeling about it (not that I expected a 39-pt ass kicking, but I had this nasty, sinking feeling that Cal was going to lose). At halftime, one guy got up a couple rows behind us and I heard him say what we were all thinking, "I'm going to go outside and cry." Plus, the guy sitting next to me, decked out in Cal gear, kept clapping when Oregon did something good. It was like he didn't understand football and had no idea what was going on, and then when nobody else around him was clapping, he'd stop. We left before the 4th quarter even started - I've never left a sporting event that early in my life, and hope I never have to do it again.
The fans were a bunch of a**holes. Oregon fans have a bad reputation around the league, and they didn't show me any reason to believe that it wasn't deserved. The people in the section next to the Cal section spent as much time taunting the Cal fans as they did watching the game and cheering for the Oregon accomplishments. I even took shit from a 10-year old kid. I so badly wanted to squash him or say something really mean to him, but I just kept my mouth shut and let him walk away. I watched as some drunk 25-ish year old Oregon fan blatantly hit on a woman who was with her boyfriend / husband who was in Cal gear -- right in front of him. She made the mistake of engaging him for like two minutes when she could have just ignored him, but it was pretty gross to watch.
Autzen Stadium, despite all the money that has been spent recently to upgrade it, still has some major flaws. The majority of the parking lot is unpaved; most of the concession stands closed midway through the third quarter, and none of them take credit/debit cards (and there are like two ATMs in the whole effing place, with the one next to us facing the sun, making it nearly impossible to read). We stood in the ATM line for the entire third quarter, which only made it easier for every goddamned U of O fan to talk shit to us as they passed by.
If I ever go back, I'd rather go during a game that I have nothing invested in, because it looks like a really fun environment to be a part of. I'm bummed that the game (and the fans) put me in such a bad mood because I couldn't bring myself to go out after the game. Even though I wouldn't be wearing my Cal stuff while out among them, I couldn't stand the thought of watching them celebrate and hearing the inevitable chatter about the game. Which meant that we didn't get to spend more than five minutes with Missy, and only a few minutes more with Allison.
Here's hoping we get back up there to see everyone we missed seeing this trip, and get to spend more time with people that did get to see. And here's hoping Oregon loses to Washington State this weekend, because it'd be nice to watch the fans take that punch in the gut.
Not many pictures worth sharing, but I've put what I put up on
Flickr.
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