Mid April we scheduled an international 7-a-side friendly match in the south of France, precisely in Toulouse…a city famous for all year solid temperatures, a cozy city and of course the Airbus factory. Our plane was Boeing manufactured but we were still allowed to land at the airport and were greeted by Pierrick and Fabrice who picked us up with the van and drove us to the hotel.
After a short stop at the hotel we agreed to meet up later in the city with Fabrice to have some beers, but first we discovered the city on our own, had lunch and strolled along the main street where some festivities were going on. We met up with Fabrice and he invited us to one of the club’s sponsoring bar. After some first cold beer’s satisfied our thirst, we headed on to a more cozy bar, watched french second league football and enjoyed talks with Fabrice about the city, his club and how we came up travelling all the way for football…late night he took us then to a famous pizza place and also there Fabrice knew someone who got a table for 10+ people on Friday nights food dining rush hour. We got tired and wanted to be 100% fit for tomorrows game, everyone but our “Irish soul” and “Der Schwabe” headed home to get enough sleep.
Everyone managed to show up down in the lobby on time, we strolled through the streets desperate to find a nice breakfast place and in the end the waiting paid off finding a marvellous spot called “Blue teapot”, highly recommended! Anyway, we used the beautiful sunny weather to discover more of the city and enjoy time at the river “Garonne”. It was time to get back to the hotel where the meeting point was set to get picked up for the transfer to the game venue. After some 20 minutes of driving we arrived in Beauzelle, a small village in the outskirts of Toulouse. A perfect pitch greeted us and we were soon ready to go. With no subs ahead we agreed on 2×30 min of game time, but added after the official match another 30 min. Long story short: We won the match in the last 15 minutes of the game and till then the game was pretty equal with goals and good chances on both sides. Both goalies did a great job and in the end we gained a 4-2 away win!
We finally got off the lil pressure we had ( as we lost so far all of our international friendlies) and relax on our last night out in Toulouse. The lads invited us to another bar sponsoring their club, with dozen of beer and endless talks we exchanged laughter and good stories throughout the night.
The next morning we picked up a rented 9-seater van and drove southwards to Carcassonne, a medieval city an hour away from Toulouse. Some of you might know the city from the same named board game. With a nice tour through the old preserved castle and a energy gaining lunch we were ready to go further south and higher on altitude!
Andorra, the small tax paradise country in the pyrenees was our stop for the overnight. Mountains covered in snow reached to the blue sky and with every step closer we realized that the country is off season, of course! Winter time is big here, but April signalizes that most tourists are gone…just a bunch (like us) stray away to here. We arrived after sunset and were on the hunt for a nice place to have dinner, luckily we found one before the kitchen was closing. The next day we explored La Valetta, the capital of Andorra…its hard to say if there is something important to see, rather you get happy to by cheap cigarettes and alcohol…but we don’t do that anyway. In the afternoon we headed back to Toulouse to catch our flight back to Berlin!
On behalf of the whole team we want to thank Progres-Son Football CLUB a lot for the hospitality, you guys did a great job and took so good care of the whole team, from the arrival to the departure! A bientot!
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