USA Holiday, November 15 (Fourth And Two)

Had to get up at 5:30am for a flight to Indianapolis. Not as bad as it sounds, because they were closing all of the streets in the city between 5:30 and 6:30 in preparation for the marathon in the morning, so managed to avoid most of the ensuing chaos. As we were heading to the airport there was hundreds of people lining the streets, waiting for buses to get from the city to the starting line (it seemed), I'm not sure why they wouldn't start and finish the race in a more convenient location.

The two airports with free wifi? The ones you'd least expect: San Antonio and Indianapolis.
Actually, LAX I would least expect...

The Indianapolis hotel was near the airport, rather than downtown, because we're only here for one and a half days. There was a whole bunch of hotels in the area, but as a group they seemed to be in a deserted place in the middle of nowhere - perhaps that's how all airport hotels are. A taxi driver later said something about the hotel being near the "old airport" which seemed to explain it (they'd relocated the airport terminal at some point perhaps), but looking at a map of the area that doesn't seem to make any sense. Anyway, there was a cool Waffle House next to the hotel, so that was a good consolation.

Since there's nothing to do around the hotel, took the bus into the city early, ahead of the NFL game. Problem was that the bus was about 3 kilometres away. There's no footpaths either, so you're just walking along the side of the road. Not much fun.

Arrived in the city to find what seemed like about 80% of the people are wearing Colts jerseys. Blue and white everywhere. Had a bit of a walk around but it was quite cold, and also very windy to make things worse.

South of the City Centre Circle.

East.

North,

Something in the middle.

West.

Map of IN. Lucas Oil in the top right corner.

Indiana State House.

Had some Taco Bell for dinner, which after going to actual Mexican restaurants seemed like such a poor imitation. The cheese quesadillas I had seemed like they'd just been delivered in a bag and thrown in a microwave.

Got to the game way early, and made our way to our seats. The ramps they've got to walk up to the upper levels had such a shallow incline that I takes something like 5 to 10 minutes to make it to the upper section. There wasn't much pregame action, so just had a bit of a walk around some of the stadium.

The game was great fun, and high scoring which is a bonus. The only downside is that it is very slow to watch in person, and the game ended up going for about 3 and a half hours. I was both excited and afraid when the Pats took a (unnecessary) risk to finish off the game, and of course a little upset when it backfired. It wasn't all bad though, as it was a decent consolation to be able to see the excitement of the whole crowd when the game was over, and it continued out in the streets.

Getting back to the hotel from the city wasn't a fun experience. I researched a bit about it on the internet that stated that (unlike Melbourne, New York etc) you can rarely just hail a cab off the street, you need to call for one to pick you up. That's a bit of a problem when there seemed to be almost no public phones around the city. Finally found one and called one of the companies for a taxi, waited for a bit, didn't seem to arrive, waited a bit more. After giving up on that, we did just manage to flag down a guy driving out of the city who said that it was a bit difficult to get taxis after the game but there's places closer in the center of the city where you have a much better chance to grab one. Thanks a lot for that great advice internet & hotel staff. Ending up getting home some time around 1am I think.

Looks more like a barn than a stadium.

But it's all good once you get inside - and all the way up to your seats.

Bill on the big screen!

Brady practicing.

Manning walking around, didn't seem to practice a whole lot.

A Colts family - one of many.

Big flag for the anthem, fills up the whole field.