An epic day was in the making - but first - lets change it up a bit...
Off to the gym at 7 AM for 1000 crunches and 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical.
Yes that seemed like a good idea at the time... 😜😎😄
I met Randy in the van at 8 AM and we drove over to the airport so he could pick up his rental car. That was a bit of an adventure but I somehow managed to get there and back safely. We went to Noah's bagel shop and grabbed some breakfast and miraculously my family made an appearance. We headed back to the hotel and got packed up and decided we should start heading south to Santa Clara to get there early.
We got on the interstate and in 20 minutes we arrived to discover that parking would be anywhere from $40-$75 for today's event. We found a spot close to the stadium for $40 and started walking toward the stadium.
Levi's Stadium was massive and the closer we got, the more we found thousands of soccer fans for both teams already tailgating in every parking lot. We arrived at the parking lot outside of the stadium to discover that the doors would not open until noon so we had one hour to kill. I unfortunately was not allowed to keep my binoculars because they were too large so I had to return them to the van 8 blocks away. I jogged all the way there and back with much greater ease than I imagined. Apparently that morning cardio paid off! Randy and I had a couple of beverages and joined the family and entered at noon.
It was complete mayhem as everyone was scrambling to buy apparel from the event. We were able to get three nice jerseys but no hats as they sold out instantaneously. We had to make our way to a food stand with the other 65,000 people and get some lunch. Once we had something to eat we toured around the facility. We were just amazed at how much more modern then anything I had ever been to before. Giant concourses for people to move around and washrooms everywhere. Store and food places very accessible to the large number of people in attendance.
As it approached 2 p.m. they introduced the two teams coming onto the field and the fans went wild, particularly when Real Madrid entered as I would say 80% of the fan base here was in support of them. Randy and Caroline's seats were next to the field and they let all 4 boys stay there for the warm up and the first 20 minutes of the game so they can take pictures and videos and then Nicholas and Jacob returned to our seats high up in level 408.
It was well over 30°C and we were frying all day long in the summer heat and enjoying the soccer. Finally Manchester United scored and shortly after Real Madrid scored another one and it remained 1-1 until the end of the game.
Thankfully due to international rules there was a mandatory shoot out. This was beyond exceptional as each team took turns and the crowd went wild regardless of whether it was a score or a miss.
Surprisingly, the goalies made three saves - there was 2 complete messes and one hit the crossbar and Manchester United ended up winning by one in penalty kicks. What an exciting finish!
The end of the game was also complete chaos as 65,000 people were trying to make their way to their vehicles or to the trains to depart. We thought about staying in the area for a couple hours and eating but our friends were eager to get going so we got into our vehicles and sat there for two hours in traffic before making it a paltry six blocks. Finally by 6:30 PM we were able to get onto the interstate to travel one hour south of Monterey California.
We left 30°C heat in Santa Clara and watched the thermometer on the van drop continuously until we got to the coast and the freezing brisk 12°C!! Apparently this is normal summer weather along the ocean as it only reaches 20°C in the day and goes down to 12° with cloud and rain showers in the evening. If you want heat you have to go inland as coastal weather is very similar to Vancouver in April.
We found our little hotel by the sea, had a quick swim before showering and heading off to Chili's restaurant for super Sunday specials where both families ate tons of food and many many beverages for $50/family. Another exciting day in California and looking forward to more adventures tomorrow!
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