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Sunday, Nov 14, 2021
On Sunday, I arose at a decent hour and got to watch a little football on TV; however, my friend Bong and I were attending the Raiders vs Giants game at MetLife Stadium. This would be my first NFL game back east. The seats were even pretty good.
After meeting up, we headed to the transit station and then took a “Raiders” bus to the stadium. I’m not sure it was entirely Raiders fans, but most of the crowd seemed to be that way. Quite a lively group with a few chants here and there. The lyrics are pretty simple: “RAI-DERS!”
I think the ride was close to an hour. Pulling up to the stadium, it came into view and looked quite grand. It’s also in the middle of nowhere. Quite the opposite of CenturyLink in Seattle, where there are loads of activities all over the place. Here it was just the stadium. Any booze had to be bought inside for crazy prices.
I did of course pay those prices and grabbed a 16 oz. beer or two. The stadium began to fill up though never really got past 80% full I think. As well, it was probably the quietest NFL game I’d been too. Didn’t even need to use my earplugs. But the fans that were there were excited to see their team play. There were many “New Yorkers” or Jersey people supporting their well…awful team, but they are used to that.
Nevertheless the team players didn’t seem to realize they were supposed to be awful as they played hard and ended up beating the Raiders—who had lost their key receiver a week earlier and their coach before that. Still, kudos to the Giants.
A cool perk was having an Army paratroop team drop into the stadium. That was a fascinating sight to see.
The bus ride back was not so lively.
Back in the city, we wandered around a bit looking for deals to shows. There were no great prices for some of the Broadway shows, but an off Broadway called The Alchemist was playing and it was a comedy. We attended that. I believe it was pretty funny, though I was exhausted from such a long day and the traveling the day before so it was quite hard to stay awake.
After that, I said farewell to my friend and I walked around a bit more looking for photo ops. Then returned to my hotel.