I kept telling her Kansas was no where as cool as Cali, but she insisted on coming for a few days anyways. She couldn't get over how quiet and slow everything was here compared to her life in the bay area, haha. I think I convinced her it gets old. Quickly.
She got in late Friday night, and miraculously, we stayed up talking until like 3am. For real. I don't know if I've ever stayed up that late outside of Vegas. This girl is so entertaining and full of awesome stories. And we had some serious catching up to do. :)
Saturday morning, I made her one of my favorite Body By Vi healthy shakes, and a toasted pb&j. Fancy breakfast, I know. But she loved it -- once she finally got out of bed! ;)
We immediately started scrambling around trying to find tickets to the K-State basketball game that evening. I thought it would be easy to find tickets, but of course the game sold out the previous week. Lucky for me, with the help of my brother, we found two tickets some guy in Manhattan was selling. We bought the third (for Matt) off StubHub, and set off for the Little Apple, 2 hours away.
Again, she was amazed with the lack of...anything...and we drove through the country along the interstate, snapping pictures along the way, haha.
Since it was her first time in Manhattan, I gave her a quick tour of Aggieville and K-State's campus, which of course included a stop for ice cream at the infamous Call Hall. Mmmmm-mmmmm. Best ice cream ever, for real.
They sell milk, cheese, and all kinds of meat at Call Hall, too. All local!
Aggieville (left) and the edge of K-State's campus (right)
After a little more touring and driving around the fraternities and sororities, we drove to the basketball arena...and managed to convince the girl working to let us park for free. We're smooth like that. ;)
Shannon hadn't ever been to a DI college basketball game before, so she was pretty excited. And I hadn't been to a K-State game this season, so I was pretty excited, too! We even got a picture with Willie the Wildcat before the game!
K-State didn't disappoint. It was a close and exciting game, especially the second half when we managed to sit in the student section for some real fun!
The students pretend to read newspapers while the other team is coming out, and then they shred the newspaper and throw it in the air when KSU comes out.
On Sunday, my mom took us out to brunch (really it was lunch by the time we got moving) at some little hole-in-the-wall place by my house called Pegah's, and it was some pretty solid breakfast! We had enough food for an army, but surprisingly we ate most of it. Shannon's first time having biscuits and gravy. She's lead a sheltered life. ;)
No trip for a California city girl to Kansas would be complete without visiting Cabelas! Haha. Yes, I took her to Cabelas. I think what surprised her the most was the shocking amount of guns (and gun buyers) everywhere. People were just walking around with guns. And of course she was snapping pictures of them. :)
We shopped for quite awhile after that around the Legends, and ended up in Westport at Beer Kitchen (another one of my faves) for dinner. The Grammy's were that night, and Shannon's obsession, JT, was performing. We had it DVR'd and watched it a few times before calling it a night.
The big present for her birthday was a trip to Lawrence to watch the big rivalry basketball game: KU vs K-State. The last time I went to a basketball game in Lawrence was for a women's game at least 10 years ago. I am NOT a fan of that place, but agreed to go for her birthday. Tickets were ridiculously expensive and we didn't even have any until late the night before. But it all fell in to place, so we took off for Lawrence that evening. We drove down the main street there and stopped at some of the little shops, and drove through campus, too. Plenty of students were shaking their head at me for having a K-State license plate. It's a wonder we didn't get something thrown at us!
Once we got in to Allen Fieldhouse, everyone was surprisingly really nice. And the arena was really nice, too. Much nicer than what I remembered from 10 years ago. We snuck down on the floor and got a picture with their mascot...even though we were in our purple!
Our seats were in about the top row (literally two rows from the top), but we really didn't have too bad of a view. The place was packed and louder than anything I had ever heard. For real. I had goosebumps. People around us (KU fans) were crying during the pre-game video, they had weird chants. Shannon got it right when she said, "Basketball is like religion around here!" They take it serious, that's for sure.
Of course K-State lost, like I knew that would, but we had such an awesome time at the game. It's definitely one of the cooler games I've been to. And easily the loudest! Shannon had an awesome birthday. And it just happened to be KU's best players birthday that day, too. :)
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| View from our seats |
(They had these on our seats. No, thank you.)
Shannon flew back early the next morning. I started really not feeling well again on the way to the airport that morning (at like 5am) and actually pulled over and made her drive. Then on the way home, I had to pull over on the side of the interstate and puke out my window. Awesome. Needless to say, I went home and went back to bed. Yuck.
It was an awesome weekend with my Cali friend around -- so many fun stories re-lived, and lots of good basketball. I think she had a great birthday. :) I'm working on a trip to go see her this summer. Cali is so much cooler than Kansas!
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