Friends, Sharks, and Good Times...

I had a great time in San Jose this last weekend. Although only an hour away, I didn't think about home and it truly was a vacation. So I'll try to not make this a novel, but here goes....

So I drove down to S.J. on Friday to pick up Desiree at the hotel. Which was beautiful by the way (see below).




She and I, and many others, had made plans to go see a Sharks practice at Sharks Ice. Well, once we got there, a woman saw us carrying jerseys and asked if we were there to see the Sharks, which we were. So she told us they weren't practicing there that day. Bummer!! So as the other 8 or so people showed up that we knew, we broke the news. Then just ended up there chatting out front for like an hour. Now with some free time on our hands, Desiree, Bre and I hit the mall for a few hours and grabbed some lunch. About the time we got back to Sharks Ice to drop off Bre, I received a phone call from our friends (Deserae and James) who headed to HP after we saw them last. Well, they ended up going out back to wait for the guys and got a ton of pics and autographs. So jealous!! Here are 2 of her pics...

Milan... *SIGH*

And Stubitz (left), what a hottie!!!

But after all that we headed back to the hotel and just sat by the pool and chatted for a few hours. Then our friends (Tina and Dave) who had just flown in from Ohio, showed up and chatted with us for a while. And they, and Deserae and James (who had just driven up from L.A. that morning) were too tired to go grab dinner. So Desiree and I went on our own to Teske's. This is a German restaurant that was featured on a Shark Byte episode (see below) because Ehrhoff and Goc frequent it. I love German food, so had been dying to go. Because of one way streets we got a little turned around in looking for the place, but eventually found it. And YUM!!! The place was awesome. Great ambiance and great food. I had my meal picked out from months ago while looking at the menu online (potato pancakes and the rouladen) and it was fantastic.


Then on Saturday we grabbed the breakfast buffet before heading to the Tank to see the Sharks play the Stars. It was a great game with 2 sets of back to back goals within 20-30 secs of each other and an empty net goal. Nice!! Afterwords, 8 of us went to the Tied House and then to The Brit for drinks afterwords.



On Sunday, a bunch of us had planned to meet up At The Brit for a late lunch before the game. So about 17 of us took over 4 tables, and kind of talked across the restaurant at each other. Then headed to the game against the Avs. We had one token Avs fan with us (Dave), so when we saw Sharkie outside the tank when we arrived, we knew it would be a great photo op.


And because 25 of us got group tickets, we were able to get something put up on the jumbotron. So we decided to plug the Arena :-)




It was another great game and win for us (sorry Dave). We headed back to The Brit for one quick drink, because it was freezing out to start and a bunch of people were flying/driving home early Monday morning. A few of us ended up at the hotel lounge for a drink and some yummy sliders (since it had been since 2pm that we had eaten) and closed the place down at 11pm. Deserae and I spent a few hours down in the lobby on the computers and drooling over all the awesome pictures she got of the players. When I went back up to the room around 2am, Desiree (and yes, 2 Desiree's, only spelled different) was nodding off. But since her taxi was coming at 5am, she wanted to stay awake until then and just sleep on the plane. So she and I just stayed up talking until 5am when she had to leave. Then I crashed until I had to check out at 1pm and drive home.

It was an awesome weekend and I can't wait to do it again. I got to meet more people in person that I had been chatting with online, and they are all the nicest people. I don't think I'll ever go to a game again where I don't know at least a few people who are there.