Thursday:
Arrived in San Diego around 5:30pm, after driving 1.5 hours to Indy and flying from Indy to San Diego (connecting in Atlanta). In order to get to our friends' house in Solana Beach (near Del Mar, north of the city), we had to take the Coaster train from about an hour long trip. All in all, one extremely long day of travelling - we were both passed out by 10:30pm.
Friday:
Still on east coast time, we were up and ready to roll at 7am. Ended up going for a walk to the beach, had some lunch, and made it to the Old Town transit center in time to meet AKC and company for the trip to Tijuana.
To sum the trip up pretty briefly, Tijuana is pretty much what its cracked up to be...a lot of shady people, plenty of cheap junk, lots of watered down Mexican booze, and some seedy adult themed "dance clubs". Thanks to AKC, our group got a pretty wide assortment of all of the above (some of us got more exposure than others - my girlfriend kept me in check, but the group of guys from Buffalo & Denver seemed to have a pretty good time).
In an attempt to catch back up with our friends at a reasonable time, my girlfriend and I left Mexico before the rest of the group. Turned out that we waited for over an hour for the bus to take us back across the border, which in turn, caused us to be too late for our scheduled train ride back to our friends' house. Instead, we took the trolley to the Little Italy stop and had a pizza and a few beers at a joint called Cefalu's. Definitely recommend it, if you're ever in the area.
Saturday:
Again, up and at 'em pretty early. Our friends (also from Ohio, now living in San Diego), my girlfriend, and I were in line outside of Moondoggie's in Pacific Beach at around 8:30am in order to catch up with the San Diego Ohio State Buckeye backers for the OSU vs. UM game. Pretty neat to be ~2,500 miles from home and still be able to watch the Bucks beat up on that team up north with 250-300 other OSU fans.
After the game, we spent some time on the beach. From there, back to Solana Beach for a nap, then back to PB for some drinking. We weren't involved with the San Diego Bills Backers group, so we didn't really venture towards the bars rented out by the group - we ended up hitting up a couple of clubs where we saw few Bills fans.
Sunday:
The friends had never been to Qualcomm and are still fairly new to southern California traffic, so we drove downt to the Old Town transit center and took the trolley in to the stadium. Since we didn't have a car, we picked up a cheap $3.00 styrofoam cooler, filled it with ice and beer, and planned to seek out some Bills fans to tailgate with.
Wouldn't you know it, that once the train arrived at our stop, I went to reach for the cooler, the weight inside shifted, and the side gave way, sending ~30 beers and 20lbs of ice all over the train. We managed to collect as many as possible (donated those that we couldn't carry to the homeless fellow sitting across from me on the trolley), throw them in a plastic bag, and venture out into the parking lot in search of fellow Bills fans with spare room in their coolers.
It didn't take long to come across a group of guys, all originally from WNY but now living in SoCal. They didn't think twice to invite us over and quickly offered to make room for our beer. We ended up spending the next 3 or so hours with them, as well as wandering around the lots meeting many Bills fans along the way (including one group from Hamburg that made the drive down - I found it humorous that after such a long drive, the guy still let his young son wear a powder blue LT jersey).
I'm not even going to get into details about the game, as most of you saw it (or wished that you hadn't). I only wish that I would've had a few more "snow shoes" with our tailgate friends ("snow shoes" = cocktail consisting of Wild Turkey bourbon and peppermint shnaaps - surprisingly enough, the peppermint took the edge off of the bourbon and it tasted quite good).
Despite the fact that the game was pretty much over from the get-go, I really didn't get much crap from the San Diego fans. Not even a fraction of what would've been dished out had it been the opposite situation.
I am willing to say that if the Bills would've been competitive and/or put a hurting on the Chargers, the stadium had potential to get ugly, as there were Bills fans EVERYWHERE. We were up in the nosebleeds (V56), but I could spot at least 20-50 fans in just about every adjoining section (some of which had A LOT more, including the 650+ of the San Diego Bills Backers group).
After the game, I must say that the trolley situation was a giant cluster !@#$ - the security guards weren't helpful at all at pointing us out-of-towners in the right direction, and we spent almost 2 hours in line to board the train back to our car. Definitely expected to get messed with by Chargers fans, but don't recall anyone saying anything (besides talking to fellow Bills fans going our direction).
Monday:
Spent the day lounging around preparing for the trip back. Flight departed San Diego at 10:30pm. Our ATL to Indy flight was cancelled, so Delta re-routed us from ATL to Cincy to Indy. Too bad the car was in Indianapolis, or we could've just gotten off in Cincy. Ended up making it home, extremely tired, at around 1pm on Tuesday.
All in all, with the exception of the game itself, I must say that this trip pretty much has to be the highlight of my year. To all you guys living in SoCal - you LUCKY SOBs...what a fantastic part of the country. I will definitely consider moving that direction once I do the things that I need to do in Ohio. The away game experience was a good one, and my only regret was that we didn't plan early enough to be included in the group festivities.
Regardless, I definitely look forward to a return trip to San Diego the next time the Bills visit (not to mention that I'm definitely planning on 2-3 away games next season).
I didn't take many pictures, but still haven't made the time to upload the ones that I did take. Once I do, I'll post the link in this thread.
*** Thanks to AKC for showing us around TJ (beware of the crazy guy on the trolley!)