Crossing the border - and back again

---

On a high after such a great weekend, the start of the new week brought me back down to earth with a bump. There was erasmus paperwork demanding to be taken care of, post offices who refuse to sell you stamps (don't ask!) and almost a whole day spent entirely doing two horrible translations. However, on Thursday, in the erasmus welcome meeting (yep, a welcome meeting after we've been studying here for 3 weeks) I finally got most of my paperwork and my timetable sorted.

I hadn't got much planned for the weekend, but since Rosie's mum had come to stay, on Friday evening Fi and I went out for dinner with Rosie, her mum and all her housemates. We continued on to havana club, where the atmosphere let us down a little after last week, but we still had fun whirling around on the dancefloor, and Rosie's mum put us all to shame by mambo-ing and salsa-ing better than any of us!

On Saturday, Fi and I joined Rosie and her mum and visted the Palais de Rois, Perpignan's most famous sight and shamefully one none of us had visted before. It is an imposing fortress, but the most impressive thing, after you have climbed right to the top of the tower, is the views of Perpignan stretching out before you. We followed this with a leisurely lunch in the place de la Republique, feeling contentedly like tourists.

Two of my housemates had planned a houseparty at our house for Saturday night. I kept hearing of more and more people who might be turning up and I wasn't happy with it, I'm of the view that houseparties rarely end well for the people whose house it is. So I packed bag, and after staying for a couple of hours until things were getting just a bit much, and then left with Rosie slept at hers for the night.

On Sunday morning, around the breakfast table, we decided we should go somewhere, so I headed home to drop off my stuff and see if Fiona wanted to come (she wanted to sleep after the party!) and then jumped into the car with Rosie and her mum and we headed towards the coast. We stopped at Canet plage to watch some kite surfers zipping about on the sea (the thing to do on a windy Sunday it would seem) then hopped back in the car and headed South towards Couilloure, a coastal town we'd heard a lot about so we thought it'd be worth a visit. It was. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The little town is nestled between the mountains and the sea, set around a small harbour. We strolled around, taking pictures and oohing and aahing before having lunch at one of the many brasseries. We investigated the stunning little church and walked along the stone wall that separated harbour and open sea.

After a good few hours in Couilloure, we hopped back into the car and continued to head south, winding our way up and down mountain roads, which provided stunning views, even if the unrelentng twists and turns were a little nauseating! After about 15 minutes of quiet mountain roads, we descended towards Banyuls sur mer, which we were expecting to be a quiet seaside town. However, we arrived at a carnival, the beach was packed and there were Catalan flags everywhere. We miraculously found a sole parking space right by the beach, and began to investigate. It was a Catalan wine festival ( so of course we had to sample some!), but there were several brass bands, all wearing strange, brightly coloured costumes and a lot of pretty drunk people dancing around. It was a wonderful thing to stumble across, and the sort of casual thing that would never happen in Britain because of health and safety (although we did wonder with some apprehension how many of those intoxicated people would be driving home along those mountain roads!)

We got back into the car, and thought we may as well carry on South, seeing how close we were to the Spanish border. So a few mountains later, we passed a small, unoccupied hut, a sign saying 'Benvegut en Espana', and we were in Spain. Rosie marked our border crossing by throwing up (the mountain roads were getting too much) and we continued on our way. We passed tiny hamlets nestled in the Pyrenees, and finally saw signs of main roads and civilisation. As dusk was beginning to fall, we joined the motorway going North, and drove straight towards the Pyrenees, which just got more majestic, and although we had been on them or looking at them all day, I don't think I could ever get bored of them. Within no time, we had reached the border crossing, where guards waved us through, and we were back in France, and home just in time for tea.

---