For Amanda's birthday, I got her tickets to watch the Seattle Seahawks vs the Kansas City Chiefs. It was as much a gift for her as it was for me. I've been watching football for a while, but haven't ever been to an NFL game. In retrospect I probably should've bought tickets to another game, as this one fell on the same weekend as Black Friday, but everything turned out dandy.
We made our way down to the border, and got there around 8:30AM. By the time my car came to a halt at the end of the line I could see the Peace Arch already. Sharp contrast to the other times where I'd be in line-up for a while before turning the bend to see the Arch.
It took us around two hours from the border to reach Seattle, which is a lot faster then the other times I've gone down. It also helps to have someone to talk to the whole time though.
Amanda needed to do some last minute currency exchange, but being a Sunday there weren't any locations open for exchanges. By the time we finished wondering around Seattle, we arrived at Qwest at around 11:15AM. We made our way through the tail gates being held in the parking lot. I was starving, but didn't know what the etiquette of tail gating was. Can I just approach a Seahawks tail gate, yell out "Go Seahawks!" and get a hotdog? Whatever the case, we ended up walking straight past them and into the field.
An hour and a half before the game started and there were tonnes of fans in the stadium already. Although I was wearing a similar shaded hoodie, we felt a little out of place with everyone sporting Seahawks gear.
With it being early we made it down to almost the front row of the endzone to take pictures. The stadium was massive. Far bigger then BC Place, and looked a lot nicer as well. We walked through a hundred ramps to get up to the third level seating and found our seats with an hour to go. Amanda bought Ivar's clam chowder, which I recommended from a previous trip to Seattle. Me being the genius, I ordered the chili dog. It took one bite before it dripped onto my jeans. A second bite resulted in more dripping to the ground. Then it all went to hell, my hand were covered in cheese and chili, the napkin I was using no longer had any clean spots, I got a little on my sleeve as well. Chili dog is not a good decision.
The seats we had were pretty good, at the 30 yard line, with pretty good visibility. The seats didn't seem too sturdy, but looked like it held up the not so fit individuals in the crowd. Stairs leading up to our seats though were plentiful and steep. Carrying food and drinks while trying to maneuver up the stairs required an unbelievable amount of concentration. The seats lining the sides of the field were pretty well covered, although it wasn't raining at all. The end zone seats were completely wide open, letting in the brisk cold Seattle air.
When the players took the field, we got our first taste of the unique feature of Qwest field. Cheers and jeers from the crowd echoes throughout the stadium, and it's built to purposely funnel the sound down to the field. When the Seahawks are on offense, the crowd quiets to let them properly call their plays, but when the Chiefs were on offense, it was a non-stop boo-fest with the entire stadium yelling at the top of their lungs to drown out the sound of the opposing Quarterback. It was so loud, I couldn't hear myself yell obscenities.
The noise level eventually died down as the score gradually got out of hand. The Chiefs piled on the points, and even though the Seahawks mildly mounted a comeback, it got out of hand after halftime. All the way up to halftime though, my beer stayed frosty cold, as did the rest of my body.
Overall a great experience, it'd be great to go down and watch a more competitive game, or at least watch some better teams play. Time to look up some proper tail gate etiquette.
