I told Chris the night before to wake me up early to work out and watch the Ghana-Serbia game. That didn't happen. For one, there wasn't a gym at the Comfort Suites. Also, I ignored Chris's 6:30 am calls. Didn't actually wake up until half time. Chris and I watched the game in the hotel lobby with other traveling soccer fans and the free continental breakfast crowd.
Went back up after the game to get ready. Mia got all decked out in her Germany gear, face paint and all. She has several German flag crayon sticks from when we were backpacking around Europe during the Euro Cup. They were distributing them for free with the purchase of water bottles at one of the train stations or something. I don't know.
There was some stress to get everything together for the game. We were suddenly short on cars because Chris was leaving his car at Comfort Suites for the duration of the trip. We went back to Mia's place to meet Chris's parents who had brought down all of Chris's stuff. We went to the District for lunch, where they played the game on several screens for us. Lunch was good and relaxing. We missed the end of the game while in transit, but that's okay. I got the gist of Germany's domination of Australia during the first half.
Everyone else went to see the game at this random fried chicken place at Diamond Jamboree. I had to go pick everyone up after the game and drop Mrs. Zheng off there so she could get her car and her sons. Of course, one should know that trying to do anything at Diamond Jamboree on a Sunday is absolutely miserable. Because there was no parking, I thought that maybe I could wait in the fire lane for the five minutes that I thought it'd take everyone to leave the restaurant. Didn't think a fire truck would come by during that time or anything. Wrong. There was a fire truck circling around the parking lot for no apparent reason. Also, it took everyone about seven months to file out of the chicken place. This meant that I was essentially going head-to-head against a fire truck at some point and couldn't move because Oppa was holding the door open and telling me that I shuold move out of the fire truck's way.
Next problem: 12 people needed to go back to Mia's place and there were 10 spots. Mia offered to pack 6 people (the two minors included) into her car. Because Mia's driving is terrifying enough when she's driving legally, Gianni and I had to stop this. Oppa and Chabba opted to get some exercise in and walk back. Because they speed walk like crazy and it takes twelve years to leave the DJ parking lot, they only made it back several minutes after us.
When we got back, we decided to spend some quality time with Bruce and play soccer with him and his little miniature World Cup ball. He's used to playing with just Mia, so he was excited to play with a group almost large enough to be a soccer team. We tired him out like crazy. We had to carry him back and he was even tired enough to let James carry him. Crazy. I know.
Went out to do a last minute store run, where we jumped between Target, Best Buy and Borders. Came back and hung around Mia's place for a while before going out to get some of Baja Freshs's knock off Korean BBQ tacos for dinner. (Side question: Is that Irvine location the only Baja Fresh that does that? Does anyone know?)
Anyway, by the time we made it back to Mia's place again, we realized we were running late for our flight. We didn't have enough cars to make it on one trip, so we had to take multiple trips. Fun times. Also, by the time that Gianni finally dropped the last of us off at the airport, Oppa realized we left his breathing stuff in Irvine. So, we had to send Gianni and Laura back again to get that while we checked in. Oppa and I hung out outside until they came back and we hit it pretty close coming in. Made it only a minute before they started boarding the flight.
We took Jet Blue to Florida and they were doing something with Hanes for whatever reason that meant that we all got plain white Hanes shirts while boarding the plane. Random. Also, the Long Beach Airport was kind of cute in a dinky way. Anyway, we boarded the plane and kicked some random lady out of her seat. Probably a good thing too. Chris and I were sitting next to her initially and I accidentally hit her in the face with my backpack on the way in. Would have made for an awkward flight.
So, apparently I misread where my gate is, so I should probably close down and relocate now. More on the actual trip to come.
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