Baltimore Ravens Football!

Both Lena and I love American football, but neither one of us had ever been to a game before. I have been to a few college games, but that was many many years ago, and Lena, being from Sweden, had never been to any kind of game, other than when my son played when he was 16 years old. So, with our 10 year aniversary (of the day she moved in with me and changed my life forever) coming up, I decided to get us tickets to watch our much loved Baltimore Ravens. When I started looking on line for tickets, I didn't expect to find great seats, but I was surprised to find many seats available through the NFL Ticket Exchange. This is a site where people can buy and sell season tickets. Once I decided on when we wanted to go, I just searched the seating chart for available tickets in each section of the stadium.

I was so shocked when I clicked on section 128, which is on the Ravens bench side of the field, to see two seats for sale in the very first row!!! I could not believe it, and sat for a minutre just looking at the screen. It couldn't get much better than this, so I bought them before someone else did! I was able to print the tickets on my printer here at home, so there was no waiting for them to come in the mail (Love this internet thing!)

With tickets in hand, as soon as Lena came home from work, I had to tell her! She screamed so loud, I think the neighbors across the street heard her! She was so excited, as was I!!

The day of the game, we drove about 20 minutes to the closest Light Rail stop, and paid $3.00 each to take the train to Baltimore.

The train has a stop right in front of the stadium, and this is so much easier, and less expensive than driving, and parking is free here! Parking probably would have cost us $20.00 or more in Baltimore, and we would have had to walk a short distance to the stadium. Most the parking at the stadium is taken by all the season ticket holders, so everyone else uses public parking near the stadium.

When we finaly arrived at Raven's Stadium, officaly called M&T Bank Stadium, it was so exciting! The parking lots all around the stadium were packed full of tail gate parties, and tents, and 1000's of people cooking out and partying before the game started. Many people get to the stadium for these parties many hours before the game starts. Today the game starts at 1:00pm, and I heard on the radio about people getting to the stadium to start the tail gate parties as early as 8:00am! This was something no words, or pictures can come close to discribing.

You must see this for yourself!

We first took a walk around the outside of the stadium checking out all the venders, and and area called Ravens Walk. This is an area between the baseball stadium and the football stadium set up with vendors of all kinds and places to get a drink or two and some food before entering the stadium. It's almost 12:30, so time to enter the stadium, but first Lena had to buy a Baltimore Raven's Cheerleaders calender.  We went through security, and quickly found our seats. WOW!! right behind the Raven's bench on the 35 yard line in the front row!!! Once we were settled in, we still had time before the game starts, so we went back up to one of the many food stations, and picked up a few nessesary items to enjoy the game with ;) With food and drink in hand,we headed back to our seats and watched the Baltimore Ravens Marching Band perform.

It's almost game time, so first the players from the other team enter the field, then our Ravens are announced and enter the field through a barrage of smoke, fire cannons and fireworks getting the crowd all worked up and ready for the game!

The game itself was great, and we were up close and personal with many of the players, cheerleaders, band members and the mascots! I even got one of the band guys to take a picture of us at our seats! Of course we won the game, which makes it even better, but we knew we would win! :)

After the game, we checked out a few more stores inside the stadium looking for that all desired Raven's gear, then made our way back to the train stop for the 20 minute trip back to the station where we left our car.

It was a great day, and if you are ever in town and have the chance to see a football game here in Baltimore, even if you are not a Raven's fan, do it! The stadium is great, and the sites and sounds of the fans are amazing!!

 

P.S.

If any of you watched this game, you might have seen me. My neighbor said he saw me cheering/yelling at the TV camera, which I did!! :) Unfortunitly we didn't record the game, so I missed my 3 seconds of fame on national TV :(