At least I had both of my shoes...

Franklin Street: The Celebration from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

The Heels won and we went to Franklin Street. I had seen pictures of 2005's championship win and knew it would be like drunken sardines with fire- but the scene that awaited our arrival was even more than I expected. There were people in trees, on telephone poles, shimmying guide wires... I saw a crying soroity girl on the phone with one shoe.

We decided to wade into the mass of bodies a little bit of the way; our friends HAD to cross the intersection to get to their car- we, on the other hand, biked in -and were not obligated to do this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, scratch that- seemed like an obvious thing to do. About halfway through the Franklin, South Columbia intersection we found ourselves wedged between 2 bonfires and a mass of people pushing from in front, behind and from both sides. With Linda and Mira behind me, (Kelly, Matt and Jacob had diverged from us at some point and were making their own way across) all I could think was, "Ok so if I fall, they go down with me and we get trampled and die..." Which in all reality could have very well happened as me against very large drunken men falling all over the place, leaves me with not so great odds. At the moment I realized that we could go no further forward , or to the side- I turned and realized back was not really an option either. It was a bit of a panic moment. The second there was a mild break behind us we turned around, still against the flow of people heading into- or at least trying to head into the intersection. Mira was behind us when we turned to leave, but got separated at some point- which was concerning becuase one second she was there, the next- gone. We texted a bit later to see if she had met up with the others and indeed she had, which was good because we both felt really bad about it.

In retrospect, I am not surprised that no one was trampled in the course of the evening because really at the most packed, there was no room to fall, except into the bonfires, which did end up happening to some poor guy ( I can only hope that he was very very drunk). Also in looking at the aerial footage, we were at the worst spot in the middle of the intersection between the two largest bonfires...

Three beers was not enough for me to completely enjoy the experience. But we were there.

and so was the crying girl with one shoe.

and about 50,000 other people.