h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The, if not best, then most expensive St. Patricks day i ever had was in Bergen, Norway in 1997.
All things started out as they were supposed to, in that irish pub that seems to follow you around no matter where you go in the world.
After a serious afternoon session of "warming up" with several pints of guiness we all of a sudden realized that the bartender had given us a slip of green paper every time we'd bought a beer. If you have ever been to Norway you'll know that beer isn't exactly cheap there, so we were seriously wondering if this would give us another beer for every 2 or 3 slips you'd collected, but no! It was for a lottery that would be drawn later that night. This, of course gave us no option but to remain in the pub and work on our winning chances. By the time of the drawing neither of us could see what was going on at the stage (and it wasn't that smoky in there).
The ridiculous thing was that i won!! For the first time ever, i actually won something, a football ticket, yiepii. Except for the fact that the football match was taking place in Liverpool and there was no complimentary plane ticket along with the price. So rather drunk (read absolutely scuttered) the Danish and the Australian guy walked off from the pub with no goal in mind. Our aimless wandering brought us to the dockside at 4 o'clock in the morning where we encountered a rather large sailing ship, where we tried to sell the football ticket. The guard on board (obviously the only one left behind in the St. Patricks day celebrations) did not have any intention of buying a ticket and told us to bugger off. We did so, one in each direction. I stayed on terra firma, while my mate went in the drink - not Guiness, but cold harbour sludge in the Port of Bergen!! And thus ended the night with arguing with taxi-drivers to take my soaled mate in the taxi and buy a football ticket for a game in Liverpool.