They don’t say y’all here…

Thanks to U.S. Soccer for the picture!

It’s day one in Winnipeg. My emotions are EVERYWHERE.

We arrived at our hotel that can be compared to something like the Benton Inn around 12:45 am this morning. At this point we had been on the road more than 24 hours and all we wanted to do was sleep.

After passing through six states on our road trip we spent three hours in line trying to cross the border, so what did I do? Made friends with the fellow USWNT fans. My favorite lady I met was in the car behind us, yelling out “USA” at the most random times. She was from Texas. We were afraid it was going to start raining AGAIN while we were trying to cross, which meant we would have to rechalk the back window of ‘ol Jenny the Jeep for the millionth time, who made it here just fine by the way.

Once we finally got settled in in our – what would have been the coolest place to stay in the ‘70’s hotel, it was 1:45 AM. After only getting about six hours asleep since Thursday night (and this was Sunday morning) I was ready to CRASH.

Weather report with Jessie:

“Um guys, the weather today says smoke.” What does that even mean? We looked it up. It literally means there is smoke in the air. From a large fire. You don’t see that in Benton.

Game day. Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE game day. After a MUCH needed relaxing shower I finally got around to making my posters that I usually have completed WAY before now. If you know me, you also know I’m the slightest bit of a perfectionist. Therefore, I was complaining to Jessie non-stop how these posters were terrible quality compared to my last few. (haha) Despite the “this is crap” poster attitude I had going on, I was SO excited to head to the stadium, with no idea what to expect, as I put on my red, white, and blue attire literally jumping on the bed because I couldn’t sit still.

When parking at the World Cup:

Well you see, any normal person would have bought a parking pass from FIFA, but the broke college students did not. So after driving around for a good 4 miles – OH MY GOD THERE IS THE STADIUM IT IS HUGE – we finally parked in a sports pub parking lot, and I was literally praying Jenny the Jeep wouldn’t get towed as we walked the two and a half miles to the game.

Oh. My. Gosh. We are actually here. “Jessie, is this happening? Did we really drive to Canada?” I was doing a Coach Boone famous “fast walk” that would have put pre-season warm ups to shame by the time I could see the 10 ft. tall Sinclair poster in front of the stadium. Red, white, and blue EVERYWHERE. Flags flying, cheers of USA, selfies, group pictures, a guy in a flag themed bodysuit giving high-fives to everyone he sees… This is going to be good.

Now y’all know that I have been to a lot of USWNT games, I know almost too much about the girls on the team, but they inspire me. On and off of the field through the good and the bad, they are the women (and the ones who have played on past teams) who have got me through some of the best and worst times. If you are an avid USWNT follower, you are probably aware of the #SheBelieves campaign they are doing. This is all about your goals, passions, dreams, what you want to do with your life. I sent in mine about going back to Nicaragua after Winnipeg, thinking nothing of it then U.S. Soccer gave me a retweet, which was cool enough for me. Then last week before heading up here Julie Johnston, a defender on the team, made a video (that is on U.S. Soccer’s twitter page) to me about following where my passion takes me. I freaked. Then followed by, “JJ” commenting on my instagram post I tagged her in thanking her for the video. Even better. Everyone keeps saying, how do these things happen to you? If I knew, I would tell you. I’ll never understand.

To tie this in with our World Cup story and my “this poster is crap” issue:
We get to the game and I have one side dedicated to Hope (of course) because I was on operation meet her for the fifth time, and the other side dedicated to JJ saying I believe in her, like she said she believed in me in the video. Our seats are right on the bottom wall, to the right of the goal- they could not be any better. We hung my American flag up over the wall, tying it down with my headphones. If Daddy G-Reg has taught me anything it would be to use my resources wisely. (Love ya buddy!) So as I stood taking in our surroundings- WE ARE AT THE FREAKING WORLD CUP –I couldn’t stop smiling. I started holding up my sign, and as always what usually happens the press start coming over and taking my picture. I cant tell you how many people told me to hold up my sign and smile yesterday. Before you know it Lauren, my friend who I met at the Nashville game text me and said, “bottom left, you lucky brat.” Now, the picture didn’t come in when the text did so I was beyond confused… but before you know it I was getting texts from friends, facebook posts from my old coach, and twitter tags out of this world. When I FINALLY saw what it was about ten minutes later, U.S. Soccer had added my picture of me in the stands holding my Hope sign. I might not have got to meet her this time, but out of the 31K+ fans, and I got a picture posted, I’ll take it. Maybe Hope saw it after the game. Or maybe she will read my blog. That would be neat. 🙂

Other game highlights:

Pia, who use to be our team’s coach was coaching the game before the U.S. (we were on TV during this game) waved at us before she left, me and Jessie love her.

One of the girls, a few years older than me, who was sitting beside us told me she would pay me $100 if I could get Pinoe to come over to us. (Didn’t happen, but I tried!)

Megan Rapinoe (Pinoe) scored two goals, and Christen Press scored one between Pinoe’s two that I totally called. Why are we so good at predicting these things? Jessie puts me to shame though.

We witnessed ten goals, in two games, at the World Cup, in one day. Insane.

Alex Morgan waved at me, and the same girl who wanted Pinoe just looked at me and laughed and said, “Seriously?”

I finally saw Abby play a 90 minute match. 

I witnessed two engagements. GOALS. 

Jenny Taft who works for Fox Sports and covers most of the games was filming in front of us. I seriously want her job! After the game I told Jessie I wanted a picture with her, so she told me to get her attention.. I was super nervous though!  “Jenny! Jenny Taft!” She looked up. “Can we get a selfie with you?” Smiling she walked over and said, “I’m really not that important!” No Jenny, you are.. My little Public Relations/Photography major self wishes anything to be you.  “I want your job!” I said that and I could tell she was laughing a bit.. Probably at my accent.

People here don’t know how to handle my country twang. Apparently they don’t say y’all here either. And McDonalds doesn’t have sweet tea.