hey let's go to atlanta!

First things first, thanks so much to everyone who linked up yesterday! I LOVED all of the sass :) 

And if you're visiting from my BBFF Alexa, welcome!

Today I am going to re-live one of my favorite trips during college. I'm calling it throwback thursday, but really I just miss college and I will reminisce about it whenever I have the chance. Lucky for you, I had a lot of fun in college. 

Rewind to December of 2008. I had pretty much been living in the library for two week "studying" for my finals with my two best friends Alexa & Lindy and Dan. Dan was on the special teams for LSU Football and was sorta-kinda-but-not-really-at-all dating Alexa. Maybe we just used him for the fun things that came along with being a football player at LSU. I mean, he's a ginger. Which is really only OK if you are a girl. After one particularly long study sesh we started talking about the bowl game. 

Now, background. LSU played in and won the big kahoona (National Championship) the year prior. So to end up in the Chicken Nuggest Bowl the year after obviously meant that we were a no good terrible team. NOT. LSU fans are just the worse fans ever and losing one game means you suck. 

Dan happened to be there with us and he casually mentioned that the players get four free tickets for family members. Say wha? Naturally we already knew that none of Dan's family members could go, so we snagged those suckers up. And within a matter of 5 minutes I booked us a hotel room and we were ready to spend NYE in ATL. 

Except I wasn't 21 and we booked a room with the most ghetto hotel ever right next to Turner Field. Turns out that you aren't supposed to stay on THAT side of the interstate. The cab driver told us not to leave the room past 8pm. THAT BAD, PEOPLE.

Anyways, the morning after my brother got married I drove to good ol' Bossier City to meet up with Alexa. She got into some shenans for a few days (think falling asleep in the backseat of her mom's car after she picked us up at the bar) and then decided (ok, it was cheaper this way) that it would be best for us to leave around 3am the day of the game.

Eight hours after that we arrived into the glory ghetto of Atlanta. Cue a quick change and we headed out to "tailgate." Now, if you've never been to Atlanta, let me fill you in. THERE IS NO WHERE TO DO THAT. The Georgia Dome is in the middle of the city. So we bought small liquor bottles and smuggled them into the arena where there was some sort of LSU hype party. 

Remember that quick change? I wish I could rewind 5 years and kick myself for thinking it was OK to 1. Look like that in public and 2. Wear tennis shoes with jeans - IN PUBLIC. The threes we are holding up are for Dan, his number was 33. Had to at least show some support to the guy, he did get us free tickets, after all.

Then we sat on the ground for four hours and drank what little amount of rum we had. SO much fun, lemme tell ya!

The team came through prior to the game and we cheered a bit. Fun story - that massive creature is Herman. He used to come to Calzone Wednesday with us in college and he nicknamed me Carnie because my hands are so small. Said the guy who holds the record for being the biggest baby ever birthed in the state of Texas. 

We won the game and it was great blah blah blah. We hightailed it outta there to go to the team hotel so we could get some NYE kisses. Was I delerious? Who was going to kiss a girl in tennis shoes?! So we end up at the Hilton and wait. For an hour. Did you know that there are TWO Hilton's in Downtown Atlanta? We went to the wrong one. Cue some running to the other one so that we could make it there before the team got back. We made it and what do ya know, they get back just after midnight. COOL. REAL COOL. 

So we went to bed. OH - and the three of us shared a king size bed with ME in the middle because Alexa didn't want Dan to get any ideas. I am such a nice best friend, huh?

The next day we met my parents (they were in town on a church trip randomly) at the World of Coke and I had more Coke that day than I'll ever have in my life. 

OH LOOK! More tennis shoes! I was all about fashion on this trip. Oh and yea, that's Dan. The ginger.

I love looking back at this trip because it was NOTHING like we planned. We ended it by going out in Buckhead that night. But I had to drink Sprite because I was 20. Who plans an awesome fun NYE trip when you're 20?!

Even though it was nothing like we planned, it's something that Al and I will never forget. We also will never let her live down Dan.