I graduate in seven months, and I finally realized one of my biggest regrets of my college years.
I haven't gone to enough away games.
My sister and I went to Mississippi State my freshman year and stayed with our brother. The Friday before the game was Bulldog Bash, which is their version of a UPC concert, featuring Matt Wertz and Gavin DeGraw. I had a great time and got to walk around their campus that night and see the highlights.
The next day was less exciting. Remember the time we won 3-2? Yeah, it was that game.
So overall, an enjoyable experience, but I never went to another away game until last weekend.
I guess part of why I never went was the difficulty of getting tickets as an underclassman, and then last season all the good games were at home.
This season, though, my friends and I decided to take advantage of our seniority and buy tickets to South Carolina, LSU and Georgia. We all knew at least one person at each school that we could crash with, and road tripping together would make traveling less expensive.
After a few quick stops around Auburn, we were on the road. Five and a half hours plus some traffic later, we were there. Time flies when you're fist pumping to Girl Talk and belting the lyrics to your old Avril Lavigne CD, right? Right.
The first pleasant surprise came when we found out there was no towing on weekends for our friend's building. Auburn, take note.
The next came later in the night when we went to Five Points, Columbia's downtown college scene.
Along with having a huge variety of bars to go to, there was no cover. Awesome, I know. I was able to bar hop to four different bars, all after 11 p.m., without puling anything out of my wallet except my license. Here's looking at you, Skybar.
Also, being the minority at another SEC school makes the experience that much better. Seeing another fan reppin' their Auburn gear and joining an Auburn chant in a crowd of "the enemy" brings a sense of unity and pride like nothing else.
I found myself surprised Saturday by the classy Gamecock fans.
Maybe they pitied us too much to say something mean because they'd heard about our defense, but if the worst I have to put up with is a "Roll Tide," or the soda poured on the back of my car over my Auburn license plate, I'll take it.
On top of it all, our defense showed up and we won the game.
After dinner at Chipotle, a problem Auburn is in the process of remedying, our USC friends gave us a quick personal tour of campus.
Although I prefer Auburn's close quarters, USC's sprawling campus was beautiful and full of history.
The all-around success of this trip opened my eyes to how fun away games can be, and I can only hope the next few will be just as exciting and educating.
I encourage students to travel outside the Auburn bubble at least once, preferably for an away game, and truly experience the other college towns not lucky enough to have you.
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