Game Day - Raiders versus Bengals

When all the squash was over, the team broke up with many going back to Ireland, some staying on in San Francisco and some travelling to other parts of the States.

We stayed in San Francisco for a few days before flying home.

A friend of Ciaran's was very keen to go to a Football Game on the Sunday after not being able to go to a college game on Saturday due to the squash.  

I have no interest in Football but I love the atmosphere of the game and the stadium so made a decision to go with them if they were able to get tickets.

The plan was to get tickets as the stadium but lucky for us a USA squash player was able to hook us up with a ticket seller and we got them through him (we played over the odds but at least we didn't have to deal with scalpers at the stadium).

We got the BART out to Oakland.

 New rules had just come on to force where you couldn't have a bag bigger than basically a DVD. So I had to check in my bag. I saw these mounted guards when I made my way to bag check in (where I had to pay 10 dollars for the privilege) 

The football field had the baseball diamond laid out on it.

It was a chilled out fun afternoon.

The lads chatted to this Raiders fan during one of the breaks

 A huge screen was at each end of the field.

The fans were great - all decked out in black to support their team.

Ciaran & Conor visited the Raiders Store after the game.

Here's the remains of the tail gating!

While the lads were in the shop I went and got my bag back. While doing this I saw the cheer leaders leave the stadium, which was pretty cool.

All in all a fun afternoon, and something we can't do at home in Ireland. I had no idea what was going on the majority of the time but I really enjoyed myself!

When we got back to San Francisco we ate in a restaurant in China Town which was another cool experience. A fantastic end to a brilliant day.