The Collioure Code

Again taking advantage of the awesome French holiday schedule, this time Ran's work decided to schedule a team building weekend on Sat, Sunday and Monday (May 30, 31st and June 1st). Normally I would happily let Randi go have fun, to allow me to do some things on my own. But I realized I have absolutely nothing to do in Toulouse by myself, so I weaseled my way in on her work trip...and was very glad I did.
On Saturday morning we picked up her co-worker, Tom Hoffman, who is also from MN. We took a beautiful 90 minute ride to Cailla and the foot of the Pyrenees, to do some white water rafting. For Randi and I it was our first time in a big 7-man raft. I was a little concerned with Randi's back being ok with this...and then with all the water around us. But our guide was excellent and very much in control. When he yelled "secure!" we all went inside to the well of the boat very quickly. We did what he said and we all stayed in the boat throughout the ride. It was a nice warm day to be in some really cold water...really fun time.
From there we drove an hour south to a small nameless town, near Perpignan, just off the Mediterranean coast. PTC had us set up in very nice accommodations. It was fairly luxurious and pre-paid :)
That night the Director of PTC in Toulouse and organizer of this event, Patrick, had arranged for all of us to take a bus to a discotheque there in town for drinks and dancing. As we are all boarding he gets on the bus to say that the return ride back to the hotel will be around 3:30am, so take your car if you want to come back earlier...and he was serious!! Needless to say we took our car and ended up getting back around 2:30am anyway. But it was a lot of fun...mostly watching Tom have a few drinks and then randomly push the Korean guys out on the dance floor.
The following morning we had to be ready to go by 8am for a catamaran ride over to the small, artistic town of Collioure.
The ride there was long and rainy but the scavenger hunt game played while in town in Collioure was really fun. Even though it rained there as well, we ran through town with our polaroid camera, searching for clues for our next photo needed and felt like we were characters in Dan Brown's next novel...The Collioure Code. It really was a great way to explore this beautiful Mediterranean coastal town.