Not very interesting, but if you are short:
First time - arrived via Carcassonne, spent half an hour at the train station there explaining Rugby League to some travelling Americans [pretending to be Canadian at first as they thought everybody in Europe hated them]. Spent most of the 3-4 days were were there 'death marching' from cafe to cafe. Generally 3 or 4 of the 6 of us spent a fair proportion of the late night/early hours sleeping in bars. I have to say the Catalan bar staff are far more understanding about alcohol induced dozing than Wakey nightclub doormen. Developed a chant of Jambon. 2 of us were in a hotel out of town, drunkenly came up with theory that taxi drivers charged us less if we were French, so pretended to be local by not saying owt other than 'oui', or slurred attempts at Gallic noises. Oh, and watched the game.
Next time - Blackpool to Barcelona for a game in France? On the cheap. Much of same as above, once you've seen Perpignan there's not much else to do and we were too lazy to every get round arranging to do anything. Sat with Catalans fans during game who were, ahem, 'passionate'. Made Bradford fans seem rational in there approach to a ref who did 'em no harm in a game they won, pouring their beer over him after the game. didn't realise I'd lost my passport on the way there until our transfer kindly handed it to me on the way back, kindly chap. Got stopped at Blackpool on way back by immigration officials who must have taken a look at the 6 disheveled clowns wearing clothes that were fashionable in Eastern Europe c.1983 and seemingly mistook us for Romanians trying to sneak in to work in the UK.
First time - arrived via Carcassonne, spent half an hour at the train station there explaining Rugby League to some travelling Americans [pretending to be Canadian at first as they thought everybody in Europe hated them]. Spent most of the 3-4 days were were there 'death marching' from cafe to cafe. Generally 3 or 4 of the 6 of us spent a fair proportion of the late night/early hours sleeping in bars. I have to say the Catalan bar staff are far more understanding about alcohol induced dozing than Wakey nightclub doormen. Developed a chant of Jambon. 2 of us were in a hotel out of town, drunkenly came up with theory that taxi drivers charged us less if we were French, so pretended to be local by not saying owt other than 'oui', or slurred attempts at Gallic noises. Oh, and watched the game.
Next time - Blackpool to Barcelona for a game in France? On the cheap. Much of same as above, once you've seen Perpignan there's not much else to do and we were too lazy to every get round arranging to do anything. Sat with Catalans fans during game who were, ahem, 'passionate'. Made Bradford fans seem rational in there approach to a ref who did 'em no harm in a game they won, pouring their beer over him after the game. didn't realise I'd lost my passport on the way there until our transfer kindly handed it to me on the way back, kindly chap. Got stopped at Blackpool on way back by immigration officials who must have taken a look at the 6 disheveled clowns wearing clothes that were fashionable in Eastern Europe c.1983 and seemingly mistook us for Romanians trying to sneak in to work in the UK.
