Gameday

This was the day that was the whole reason for the trip - the Raiders visiting the Redskins at FedEx Field. I realised I'd forgotten to bring any Raiders hats, so we had a quick pregame detour to the mall where we all bought a hat at Lids (and I joined the 'Passport Club' because it saved me $6). We were then off down the I-95 to the game.

We found our way to one of the outlying car parks and then queued up for the bus to the stadium, accompanied by some vociferous Raiders fans. The stadium itself is very impressive, though we ended up sitting behind a pillar which blocked our view of the 20 yard line there were TV screens every thirty feet or so we could always follow the game. Take my advice, however, make sure you've got a pocketful of cash before you offer to buy everyone hotdogs - $7 each! Food in America is usually so cheap too. The game itself was a little mistake ridden, with some odd playcalling on both sides, not least the Redskins decision to apparently ignore Clinton Portis for most of the fourth quarter (including on the fourth down play which eventually ended the game, where Portis was wide open underneath for the first down but Brunell didn't even look at him), but at least it was close and had the right result with a Raiders win! Getting back to the car park proved to be a little more difficult than the other way, first we had to queue to get on a bus, then the bus had to queue to get out of the car park as they had no special right of way. We listened to the Bengals-Colts game on the radio on the way home and then stopped off at Famous Dave's for tea, back to normal in American food terms, an big pile of food for about what you'd be buying a sandwich for in the UK.