Hey guys.....
Home safe and sound. I actually got back to Charlotte at 10am yesterday......but I was in total recovery mode (which was a good thing, and well worth it). I assume Skipper probably did something similar. He was catching an 11:15 flight to Knoxville to get him home near 1pm.
But here's the story.....it was fucking awesome. Once Skipper got his ass outta bed on Sunday morning, the adventure began. We took a shuttle bus from the hotel to the subway station. While at the subway station, Skipper and I met up with a couple from San Fran. They have been married for 30 years and were super nice. They were looking as perplexed as we were about the subway route to get to the stadium, so we joined forces.
We got on the first subway train and had to make a connection to another one....but luckily, the lady that we joined forces with spotted a RedSox usher that was on his way to work. So at that point, we were just following him.
So we arrived just outside of Fenway at 10:45 (game started at 1:35). We spotted one of the most well known bars outside of Fenway....The Cask & Flagon. That's where Skipper and I chose to start our drinking. We asked the couple from San Fran to join us......so they did.
Law in Boston is you can't be served beer until 11am on Sunday, so we got our table.....and water (for 10 minutes). Precisely at 11am, our waitress brought over the first round. Sandi (our waitress), was absolutely fantastic. Had the thick Boston accent, very personable, and easy on the eyes
After about an hour, the couple that joined us left because they wanted to go ahead and get into the stadium. Come to find out, the guy used to umpire Dustin Pedroia in Little League.....so he was going to try and find him and maybe have a chat with him before the game.
Skipper and I stayed put for another half an hour or so......shot the shit with Sandi some.....drank a couple more beers......then we left to head into Fenway around 12:30.
The seats we had were great. They were behind the 3rd base dugout, about 20 rows up or so. Perfect view of the entire field. Only thing that would have been better was if the sun cooperated. It was overcast a lot of the day, and when the sun finally did come out, we were in the shade from the upper levels. Poor Skipper was freezing his Australian ass off. Yeah, I said Australian. Everyone around us at the ballpark thought Skipper was Australian because that's how he introduced himself. Pretty sure I had a ton of fun laughing at him convince everyone of his new nationality.
The game itself was good to watch, too. Beers, italian sausage dogs, more beers, and a few home runs made the game. Ultimately, the game went 17 innings but we were long gone by then. Around the 7th inning, we ended up heading back to the Cask & Flagon to drink a little more and to get Skipper warm. He was freezing......which turned out to be a good thing, in hindsight.
When we went back into the C&F to drink some more, we had Sandi again (requested her), and she was more than happy to have us back. She told us that we should probably just take a cab to the TD Garden instead of trying to get on the subway.....which was great advice. After having beers #7, 8 and 9 on the day, we bid Sandi farewell (not without getting her phone number first)

and off we headed to the Garden.
So once we got to the Garden, we were a little early. In fact, they weren't even letting most people in......oh but wait, we had SUITE level tickets. "Right this way sir. You can use this elevator and head on up." FUCKING AWESOME!
Once we got up to our level and got off of the elevator, you could tell this was going to be an amazing experience. Everything was so nice, memorabilia from the past Celtics and Bruins teams lined the hallway, and the suite was absolutely perfect. In our exploration, we found the bar area for our suite level and it was amazing. So amazing, as we entered, I asked if we were allowed into it. "Absolutely sir. Have a great time!" Ok....we didn't disappoint the host then.
At the executive bar, we started on beer #10 and started meeting people again. My Australian friend did not disappoint. I'll give him this, Skipper never slipped. He played a great Australian, and everyone just ate it up. We ended up meeting a very nice couple from Maine, and we chatted them up for a little while. Again, they couldn't have been nicer people.
Once it got close to gametime, it was time to go sit in the suite and get comfortable. For those of you that caught the game on TV, it was a total assbeating. The Celtics came out of the gate so fast and just never missed. I remember looking at the stats being displayed in the 3rd quarter, and the Celtics were shooting 66% for the game.....SICK! The crowd at the Garden was awesome too. Even when the game was in blowout mode, they were still really into it. Skipper and I finally departed the game with about 6 mins left in the game, just to avoid some of the traffic......the game was never in doubt and at that point, most (if not all) of the starters were sitting.
Cab ride back to the hotel.....a quick trip to the hotel bar for Skipper to get a lil food (and I mean lil food.....fish and chips = $22......and you got 1 piece of fish. Skipper bitched about it to the manager which was great!) From there, it was time to crash.....we had an 8am flight to catch!!!
So here's the bottom line.....Skipper is the best kind of friend to have (this pains Nole to hear). I couldn't have asked for a more fun weekend. And all the people in Boston were so nice. I would absolutely go back again....who knows, maybe I will........