I saw the second home game of the season for the Giants tonight - was finally in town at the right time to see the much touted AT&T Park, built downtown near the Embarcadero.  I dragged my brother along for his birthday present, even tho he has no interest in baseball whatsoever.  (But he did have a modicum of interest in seeing the inside of the stadium.)  When Bengie Molina hit a nice and clean little home run in the bottom of the second to score first and put the Giants in the lead over the Padres, and I was jumping up and down and everyone around me was cheering, and I turned to my brother who was sitting there unmoved, that's when I knew it was pointless.  We got up at the end of the third inning to look around the park and never went back to our seats.  Not that that was a big loss.  I had bought the cheapest seats and it was freezing cold that night, with the chill wind whipping through us.  

We explored the stadium, ate some very yummy garlic fries, watched the game from a more sheltered location.  I looked around in shops.  D watched the basketball game from one of the monitors.  He had something called the Cha-Cha bowl - jerk chicken, rice, black beans, adobo sauce.  I had clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl.  It wasn't good when this tourist gimmick first came out in high school and it still wasn't good tonight.  For some reason, the cold air made me think I would like it better.  Oh well.  Then, even more insanely, I had a chocolate malt.  Freezing.  But at least it was yummy.

At some point the Padres tied it up, and when the Giants failed to score at the bottom of the ninth and we went into extra innings, D and I decided to leave.  We weren't the only ones.  We took the light rail the wrong way in order to be able to get a seat on the way back.  We waited for what seemed like a very long time in the cold.  Coming back in the direction of the stadium, it was clear that the game was over as the light rail platform was packed.  The Giants had won.  And then just as we were pulling out from the stop, the fire works started.  I watched them from my window seat all the way down the Embarcadero until the train when underground.