Super Bowl Celebration

So on Sunday the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl! What did that mean to me? Not a thing. Football is something I watch with hubby but don't care much who wins or loses. So the Ravens winning wasn't that big of a deal. Until yesterday. Guess what happens when the winning team is in your city - a big celebration! We had the best time! Hubby took the day off and we went to M&T Stadium for the post parade celebration. We took the light rail into the city and it was a good thing we did - traffic was backed up for miles on the interstate! We got on at the 2nd stop and a completely full train passed us up. Thankfully the next train had some (not much) room! It was my first time to the stadium and it was really nice - I was quite impressed with the level of cleanliness in the ladies room! The stadium holds 71,008 people according to the website and it was filled to capacity! And there were tons of people standing all over! Before the parade made it they had to close the gates by order of the fire marshal! I wondered what we were going to do while waiting for the parade to end at the stadium - We got good seats, and they played season highlights and then the parade on the screens and TV's in the stadium and the number of people who were along the parade route was amazing. Then as the parade ended the coaches and team were introduced. The energy in the place was amazing! Everyone was just having a great time. It almost didn't matter that it was only about 35 degrees. Okay to me it mattered, but hubs was having a great time and he really wanted to go - I mean how often do you get to go to a Super Bowl Celebration! We've discussed it and the only time we'll go again for sure is if the Cowboys win and he wasn't able to make it to the game :-) OR if they win and we can do both! The only bad part of the day was when it was time to leave. The city clearly wasn't ready for the number of people that came out. They had expected around 30K people. Not 70K+. So the train stop right in front of the stadium was PACKED. You couldn't see the platform there were so many people. So we walked about 1/4 mile to the stop at Camden Yards. Well we weren't the only people to have that bright idea :-) Hundreds of people were there. And many of them took the Northbound train, and rode it all the way back around (actually a pretty great idea) And others walked farther into the city and got on other stops. We waited a little over 2 hours for a train to come by that wasn't completely packed. Only made worse by the fact that while we waited 4 northbound trains went by before we saw 1 southbound train. And it was PACKED! Now I don't advocate violence in any situation but after two hours in the cold I could understand if someone had snapped. And a few people seemed on their way to snapping. We decided to wait another 15 minutes and if we didn't get on a train we'd walk for something to eat and just wait till later to head home. Guess deciding to leave was a good thing. When the 15 min was almost up we got on a mostly full train! It was a tight squeeze and uncomfortable but we made it! And I felt so bad for the hundreds of people still at the stadium stop as we rode by. There was no way we could have accommodated anyone else. This has been long enough! If your hometown team wins the Super Bowl and you have the chance to go to the parade and any festivities, I say go for it! It was colder than I'd like but it was a ton of fun! (well except waiting for the train!)