We are the Champions!

And by WE, I mean Clermont of course. This past weekend Clermont played in the French Championship of Rugby. The game was at 8:45pm on Saturday night and in the huge place in the middle of town they set up a big screen tv. For the past 11 years Clermont has been in the championship, but hasn't won, but I guess the place just gets crazy with people camping out to watch the game. To ensure we landed a good spot, we got to the place at 3:30. Yes, after some careful math, one realizes that I was at this place a good FIVE hours before game time.

Now, being American, we were prepared for this tailgaiting madness. We had blankets, a cooler with beers, snacks, books, cards, etc... What we did not have? ice. Stores don't sell it, we only have 4 ice trays at home, so the beers were relied on to keep themselves cold in the cooler. After a few it doesn't matter anyway.

Thankfully the weather was perfect for such a day. No sun, but clouds that weren't very threatening, so we were able to make it through the whole 7 hours total with only a few sprinkles.

While I would say that being there was fun, I can't, in all honesty, say that I enjoyed it all that much.

1. There were incessant horns. When I woke up Saturday morning I thought people were just tooting their car horns. at 8 am. Upon further realization, someone was selling these horrible, god-forsaken horns that people blow into. My god they were loud. and annoying. and constant. At the place they were even worse.

2. I felt like I was at a high school state championship game. Everyone around me was about 5-10 years younger than me and all drinking beer. Most of them were being well-behaved, before and during the game anyway, but still only as normal as late teenagers get. (am I sounding old or what?!?!)

Finally once the game started I was happy to be there to enjoy the fanfare of it all. The game was kind of exciting, but really there was only one actual "goal" scored, the rest of the points were on penalty kicks. I did, however, learn how to conjugate the verb for "sit down!" because people kept standing up, making it hard for other people to see in the back. The game ended with a Clermont victory and that's when things went bananas. To clarify, I have been on Mass Street minutes after a national championship by the Jayhawks and it was nothing like that. On Mass St. everyone was happy drunk and high-fiving and yelling with joy. Here? People were spraying the crowd with beer (not as pleasant smelling as champagne) and throwing beer bottles and breaking them on the ground. Slight problem with having no cans in Europe really, all the beer comes in bottles, which is fun to break apparently. I grabbed some of our stuff and high-tailed it out of there, but was greeted on the way home with the sight of men peeing around every corner. I made sure to walk in the middle of the street. I won't try and describe the senses at work there.

We refrained from going out to celebrate, as I felt our 7 hours of Clermont devotion that day was enough. I didn't leave the house Sunday either because the horns were blaring and people were everywhere to welcome the victors home. Toot toot.