By TORREY ANDERSONSCHOEPE: Beating UCLA in football was easy, but getting to the game wasn’t. I won the lottery and got tickets two tickets to the game at the Rose Bowl stadium so I decided to bring my sister. We knew that traffic and parking would be a disaster so we debated the best time to leave. The answer? There is no good time to leave to get parking at the Rose Bowl stadium. No matter what you are going to be sitting in traffic for a bare minimum of 45 minutes before you even make it to the parking lot area. Once you’re there you’ll be directed to the farthest away parking spot possible and you’ll have to walk for about two miles until you reach the stadium. This was our second time at the stadium. We had gone for the Rose Bowl game last year and had learned all of the logistics. But at least once you get inside, the game is fun and it’s worth it.

It was very different going to this game because there were mostly UCLA tailgates (at least where we parked) and it was different not going to a USC game with a whole group of very spirited fans. It was interesting to how much more mellow UCLA tailgates are. I guess I’m just used to walking down Trousdale on the way to the game hearing cheering and chanting the whole way. I guess we Trojans just show more spirit.

The game itself was fun, but not too eventful, we didn’t score at all in the second half even though that’s usually our forte. Overall, I’m sad that football season is over, but it was a great season and I look forward to watching our team dominate in the Rose Bowl game.

By TORREY ANDERSONSCHOEPE:

Approaching the Bay Bridge

It seems like my trips to the weekender get better and better each year. Some travel in big groups on buses, some go in twos or fours, some take planes and some drive, but no matter how Trojan fans get to the weekender, it’s always an adventure.

Army Truck--Bingo!

This year I drove up with one of my sorority sisters and it was probably one of the most adventurous trips I’ve ever had up in San Francisco. Since it’s such a long drive up we decided to create a road trip bingo game. We created a list of things we might see along the way up and if we got a picture of it we could cross it off the list.

Tractor--Bingo!

Some of our bingo items included; a tractor, sheep, birds of prey, multicolored power line balls, fruit stand, deer, army trucks, etc. It definitely kept the drive up entertaining.

Multicolored power line balls--Bingo!

Once we finally made it to San Francisco, we found our hotel and attempted to check in, but for some reason they didn’t have our reservation starting that night, they thought we were coming the next night. We thought we were going to have to go chill with some San Francisco hobo, but the concierge shifted some things around and we ended up with a room. Later we went to the pep rally, which was in the beautiful Westin St. Francis Hotel. The band was in a gold room and there were tons and tons of alumni there. After they played for a while, we decided that the drive up was so draining that we should just get plenty of sleep before the big game.

Although we didn’t go up there with any tickets, we ran into another friend who had extras so we ended up being able to actually go to the game rather than watch it at a sports bar, which had been our plan in the first place. It turned out that our seats were right in the middle of the ‘silent section’ aka the section for older alumni who no longer chant and cheer as they once did in their youth. Basically, we ended up being the only ones cheering in our entire section, but it was ok, at least we brought some spirit to the otherwise boring section.

The band at the Weekender game

After a great game we found out way back to our car. We sat there for 30 minutes not able to move because there were too many cars and too few exits. We decided that it would be a waste of time to try and wait it out because it would probably be another hour before any car moved so we hopped on over to the Radisson and had dinner there. By the time we finished dinner and were on our way back to the car it was pitch dark. The parking lot at Stanford is really more like a forest. There are tall trees, trenches, no roads, and tons of gopher holes. So we had to slowly and carefully pick our way through the forest back to our car. We used the light from out cell phones to try and make sure we didn’t step and fall into a gopher hole. It took us a while to search for our car because there were no sections marked off or anything, so we had to search for our car by instinct. We finally found our car and headed back into the city.

Hiking through the Stanford forest trying not to step into gopher holes.

Once we were out of the freezing cold and back in our warm hotel room we decided to meet up with some friends, go shopping and check out the San Francisco nightlife. So we faced the ice-cold wind and hiked the hills and hit all the hot spots of San Francisco in our heels. We were both sore the next morning from such rigorous exercise. It had been a wonderful and adventurous weekend, but we were glad to be heading back into warmer weather and less hilly terrain. On our way back we stopped and had lunch and the famous Anderson’s Pea Soup restaurant and refreshed ourselves with the savory taste of split pea soup. By the time we got back we were exhausted from such an amazing weekend. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend full of adventure and fun, and topped off with a great game too. This year was amazing, so we’ll see if next year can beat it.

San Francisco Trolleys

BY TORREY ANDERSONSCHOEPE

There was something I had noticed earlier in the season, but just remembered to write about now. I know it’s random, but at one of the games earlier in the season I had noticed that the student section was considerably louder than usual and I couldn’t figure out why. I just assumed that maybe the students just had more energy at this certain game, but further observation led me to an interesting discovery—the speaker.

A large booming speaker had been placed between the Trojan Nation seating and the student section, which amplified our cheering as if there were almost double the people. Now I know it might seem trivial, but I really noticed how much of a difference it made. When we made a touchdown, the cheers were twice as loud and boisterous. I felt it made the game twice as fun. Everything seemed bigger and better all due to a simple speaker. Even the other people around me noticed the difference it made. I asked them if they thought it seemed like there were more people, or if the cheering seemed louder and they all agreed that there was something more that made the game just a little more engaging than it already was. So props to whoever thought of adding that speaker in between the two student sections, it made the cheering louder and the band louder too. And I think it helped our team power up and get pumped to pummel whatever team came on our turf.