Penn State is not close. In fact, it is far, like 7 hours far. We had four cars caravanning (is that a word?) to State College where we were going to be crashing with a friend of ours whose family is from State College. We were going to be 15 or so people sleeping on air mattresses and in sleeping bags on the floor of a friends house. We arrived in State College around 8pm and my first reaction was "wow, this is 10 times better than South Bend Indiana". So the moral of the story is never go to South Bend. As we drove through town in the dark we drove by a bank, not just any bank, but the Jersey Shore State Bank. My mind started to wander. What could possibly go on inside the Jersey Shore State Bank? I pictured 'roided up guys yelling across the counter, "2.7% for a 6-month CD!? Are you kidding me bro? I will end you. I will fucking end you". And I pictured female tellers with too much makeup, Gucci glasses atop their heads, and some WT tatoo on their lower back saying in that oh-so-charming Southern Jersey accent "help ya'self to some of those beggels and cream cheese over dere". I dreamed of customers pounding red bulls and spiking their hair as they waited in line to deposit their stimulus checks. Really, the possibilities were endless.
Now as a disclaimer, I know a couple people who went to Penn State and they are cool, nice, friendly, engaging, and all-around good people. Now that I've said that I can continue.
We all arrived at my friend's place and she had a case of Yeungling already chilling on ice for all of us, and then we ordered pizza, and then it was time to hit the bars. It was alumni weekend so apparently getting to the bar at 9:30 wasn't too early. Who was I to argue. We arrived at The Big Easy and commenced drinking. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, we arrived just as $1 drink specials began. By 11pm most of were cracked out on cheap vodka and jager bombs. Me, not so much, because drinking all that liquid means trips to the bathroom and for whatever reason, in Penn State the men's bathroom lines are about 30 times longer than the women's bathroom lines. Now by 12pm it was getting kind of meaty in the bar. You just got that feeling that all the dudes in there had come straight from central casting for Growing Up Gotti and they all wanted to fight.
Yup, just like this.I witnessed a guy taking a pool stick into the men's room and cracking it in half over a urinal and then walking out. I mean, what? There were several "almost fights" waiting for the bathroom, and it was 600 degrees which made it even worse because all these guys had their hair gel dripping into their eyes, so if a punch was thrown I was convinced because of the blurred vision that I'd be the Rudy Tomjanovic to someone's Kermit Washington.
Um, Ouch.
Anyway, somewhat fearful for my life, I just tried to blend in with the crowd so I too pretended to spike my hair while waiting in line and muttered "ayysshole" under my breath like everyone else in the bar seemed to be doing. As for the "ladies in place with style and grace", there were none. I think maybe people were getting their dates mixed up because Halloween wasn't for a few a weeks, but every girl seemed to want to dress like everyone's favorite questionable bi-sexual, Tila Tequila
And if every girl looked like this we would've stuck around, but it was more like every girl was wearing an outfit like the one above but had no business wearing an outfit like the one above. Not that I've been to those trashy bars on the Shore, but I imagined that the Big Easy, or as I would've called it, the Big Sleazy, is basically the Shore transplanted in State College. It was time to move on.
We stumbled out onto the appropriately named "Beaver Street" and headed into an Irish Pub. Wait, didn't we already do the whole Irish pub thing at Notre Dame? Whatever. We headed down into some dungeon where we proceeded to stand on tables and drink pitchers. It was hot, sweaty, crowded, and hot, and sweaty. Did I mention that it was crowded? I did? Ok, because it was hot, sweaty and crowded. At 2am when the bars closed the entire student population poured out onto the streets. Priority #1 for me was finding food, and the line at Pita Grill was out the door and around the block. A buddy yelled out "Finger, let's go find some parties", and I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I followed. I probably heard "Finger, let's go find some Smarties" and was so hungry that I followed in the hope of scoring some chalky tasting candy to eat.
Not my first pick for a post-bar meal, but whatever.
So I headed off into the night with my buddy and our mission was to "hey, let's just follow the music", and follow the music we did. We went to about five house parties. We just walked in, and we got some strange looks, but because it was alumni weekend maybe people gave us a pass. I don't know. We finally found our holy grail, a house with a huge wrap-around porch with people hanging out drinking. We walked right up and started pumping the keg. In about 10 seconds some guy comes up and I proceed to have the following conversation.
Mr. Nittany Lion: Hey do you know anyone who lives here?
Me: No. We're just looking for a place to hang out for a minute.
Mr. Nittany Lion: You should probably leave.
Me: Ok, no problem, we'll just finish these beers and leave.
Mr. Nittany Lion: No, I mean get off my porch, like now.
Me: Oh, ok, got it.
That's what I'm saying about PSU. People are angry as hell. As an undergrad if someone walked up to my party that was outside and crowded at 3am wanting to hang out we would've welcomed them, or at the very least allowed them to stay. At Penn State you just get the sense people are looking to fight. So we moved on to the next place. We met a girl who was outside cleaning up her porch a few houses over. Being the gentlemen that we are we asked this girl, Abby, if she needed a hand, to which she answered "oh, no thanks, I'm blacked out right now, so I won't remember how much doing this sucked when I wake up tomorrow". RRRight. Anyway, Abby invited us in for a drink and to hang out with her friends. So there I am with my buddy sitting in some girl's living room with 10 of her friends making funnies and warming up. Then I think we started to feel awkward and we left to find a cab. Too bad there are two cabs in the entire town of State College and one was in the shop. Big problem. It felt like negative 2 degrees and we needed a ride. Then we bumped into some other folks and start talking about the Phillies and the Eggles and 700 Level, blah blah. Still no cab. So it's coming up on 3:45 and we are freezing our asses off. I suggest we wait in the gas station to warm up, so I go in the gas station and I see some kid buying a burrito and I say to the kid, I say, "excuse me sir, I hate to impose, but my buddy and I are from out of town and we can't find a cab, and we were wondering if we could pay you 10 bucks to drive us home...." and the guy looks at us, kind of cocks his head to the side, squints, and says, "yeah sure man, I used to deliver pizza so I know this area really well". I triumphantly open the door of the gas station and say to my buddy, "We got a ride". And that "my friends", is how we were "mavericks" on the night of October 17th and found a way home against all odds.
The next morning we awoke to the smell of fresh banana bread and coffee as our host's mom had so graciously cooked us breakfast. Seriously. I heart me some banana bread. After eating and bundling up we headed to the RV lot near the stadium. All I can say is that Penn State tailgating is awesome. There were probably 600 RVs, and that was just the RV lot. There were probably close to a billion people tailgating, maybe a billion and a half, I really couldn't tell. And on top of that these fans go all out. At one point I was in the port-o-potty and of the 5 surrounding stalls, I think people were vomiting in at least 3 of them. Go hard or go home. In terms of space and tailgate awesomeness, you can sure do a lot when you're school is set in the rolling hills of the Nittany Mountains. Here are some pics...
Word.
Environmentally conscious Bloody Mary. No plastic cups involved. Reducing carbon footprint.
Party on Garth. Party on Wayne.
Since it was a 4:30 kick-off we were outside entirely too long. A 4:30 kick is truly a test of stamina. We linked up with a friend's friend's tailgate and thank goodness they had a box of soft pretzels because without them I think we all would've died. The tailgate got kind of crazy but I don't have the strength to write about all the details. All I can say is that by the time Michigan rumbled in for their first touchdown we were all pretty juiced and psyched that maybe we wouldn't get absolutely hammered by Penn State...oh well. But hey, at least we got our ass kicked with some gorgeous views...
Not to get all mushy on ya'll but with the leaves turning and the sun setting, it was kind of nice. When your team is getting killed I guess you appreciate the little things. Anyway, the PSU student section...impressive. The stadium...impressive. The team...very impressive.
We left the game with about 10 mins left, and headed to the bar. Without boring you all, let's just say that more hilarity ensued and the next morning we left. And here I am, on Fall break, under the weather from burning the candle on both ends. Aside from the brutally long drive it was a solid trip and if you New Yorkers ever want to get out and see real college football and tailgating, I recommend making the somewhat short (3.5 hr) trip to Happy Valley. I think it's worth it and so does this guy.
Everybody, Joe Pa. Joe Pa, Everybody.
We stumbled out onto the appropriately named "Beaver Street" and headed into an Irish Pub. Wait, didn't we already do the whole Irish pub thing at Notre Dame? Whatever. We headed down into some dungeon where we proceeded to stand on tables and drink pitchers. It was hot, sweaty, crowded, and hot, and sweaty. Did I mention that it was crowded? I did? Ok, because it was hot, sweaty and crowded. At 2am when the bars closed the entire student population poured out onto the streets. Priority #1 for me was finding food, and the line at Pita Grill was out the door and around the block. A buddy yelled out "Finger, let's go find some parties", and I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I followed. I probably heard "Finger, let's go find some Smarties" and was so hungry that I followed in the hope of scoring some chalky tasting candy to eat.
Not my first pick for a post-bar meal, but whatever.So I headed off into the night with my buddy and our mission was to "hey, let's just follow the music", and follow the music we did. We went to about five house parties. We just walked in, and we got some strange looks, but because it was alumni weekend maybe people gave us a pass. I don't know. We finally found our holy grail, a house with a huge wrap-around porch with people hanging out drinking. We walked right up and started pumping the keg. In about 10 seconds some guy comes up and I proceed to have the following conversation.
Mr. Nittany Lion: Hey do you know anyone who lives here?
Me: No. We're just looking for a place to hang out for a minute.
Mr. Nittany Lion: You should probably leave.
Me: Ok, no problem, we'll just finish these beers and leave.
Mr. Nittany Lion: No, I mean get off my porch, like now.
Me: Oh, ok, got it.
That's what I'm saying about PSU. People are angry as hell. As an undergrad if someone walked up to my party that was outside and crowded at 3am wanting to hang out we would've welcomed them, or at the very least allowed them to stay. At Penn State you just get the sense people are looking to fight. So we moved on to the next place. We met a girl who was outside cleaning up her porch a few houses over. Being the gentlemen that we are we asked this girl, Abby, if she needed a hand, to which she answered "oh, no thanks, I'm blacked out right now, so I won't remember how much doing this sucked when I wake up tomorrow". RRRight. Anyway, Abby invited us in for a drink and to hang out with her friends. So there I am with my buddy sitting in some girl's living room with 10 of her friends making funnies and warming up. Then I think we started to feel awkward and we left to find a cab. Too bad there are two cabs in the entire town of State College and one was in the shop. Big problem. It felt like negative 2 degrees and we needed a ride. Then we bumped into some other folks and start talking about the Phillies and the Eggles and 700 Level, blah blah. Still no cab. So it's coming up on 3:45 and we are freezing our asses off. I suggest we wait in the gas station to warm up, so I go in the gas station and I see some kid buying a burrito and I say to the kid, I say, "excuse me sir, I hate to impose, but my buddy and I are from out of town and we can't find a cab, and we were wondering if we could pay you 10 bucks to drive us home...." and the guy looks at us, kind of cocks his head to the side, squints, and says, "yeah sure man, I used to deliver pizza so I know this area really well". I triumphantly open the door of the gas station and say to my buddy, "We got a ride". And that "my friends", is how we were "mavericks" on the night of October 17th and found a way home against all odds.
The next morning we awoke to the smell of fresh banana bread and coffee as our host's mom had so graciously cooked us breakfast. Seriously. I heart me some banana bread. After eating and bundling up we headed to the RV lot near the stadium. All I can say is that Penn State tailgating is awesome. There were probably 600 RVs, and that was just the RV lot. There were probably close to a billion people tailgating, maybe a billion and a half, I really couldn't tell. And on top of that these fans go all out. At one point I was in the port-o-potty and of the 5 surrounding stalls, I think people were vomiting in at least 3 of them. Go hard or go home. In terms of space and tailgate awesomeness, you can sure do a lot when you're school is set in the rolling hills of the Nittany Mountains. Here are some pics...
Word.Environmentally conscious Bloody Mary. No plastic cups involved. Reducing carbon footprint.
Party on Garth. Party on Wayne.
Not to get all mushy on ya'll but with the leaves turning and the sun setting, it was kind of nice. When your team is getting killed I guess you appreciate the little things. Anyway, the PSU student section...impressive. The stadium...impressive. The team...very impressive.We left the game with about 10 mins left, and headed to the bar. Without boring you all, let's just say that more hilarity ensued and the next morning we left. And here I am, on Fall break, under the weather from burning the candle on both ends. Aside from the brutally long drive it was a solid trip and if you New Yorkers ever want to get out and see real college football and tailgating, I recommend making the somewhat short (3.5 hr) trip to Happy Valley. I think it's worth it and so does this guy.
Everybody, Joe Pa. Joe Pa, Everybody.
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