Naked like a worm

It’s the end of another weekend, and I’ve had a very lazy couple of days, so I’m afraid this isn’t going to break any records in the world of blogging. But I thought I should do an update so as not to disappoint my avid readers, or rather my dad.

I left you all in suspense on Friday evening, as I was about to go and check out the height of Friday night entertainment in Melle. As a student, I’m accustomed to being greeted with loud music, unpleasant smells and drunken revellers as I walk into a pub on a Friday night. On entering the Café du Boulevard to meet Mike and Alfredo, however, the majority of the punters were in their 50s or above, sitting around tables playing board games. This is Melle, I suppose…

After chatting in French for a bit (as Alfredo doesn’t speak English, so French is the only common language for the 3 of us) we decided to do as all the others were doing and get a game out the cabinet. We picked Scrabble, as it was about the only one we recognised, and in fact we ended up having a great night! Who knew you could learn so much new vocabulary whilst drinking vodka and cokes?! That’s another thing about the Café (or it might be France in general, I haven’t discovered yet); there seems to be no such thing as a measure for alcohol, they just freely fill half your glass with vodka and dilute it slightly with coke. Anyway, the most interesting piece of vocabulary we learnt, and which I give you all permission to use when an appropriate occasion arises, is ‘être nu comme un ver’ which literally means ‘to be naked like a worm’, but which idiomatically translates to ‘to be stark naked’.

Apart from having a French woman come up to our table and tell us that some of the words we’d spelt didn’t in fact exist in the French language, we finished the game (or rather, gave up) feeling quite proud of our achievement. Here’s how it ended:

Saturday consisted of buying food from Aldi, and sitting in front of Skype for the rest of the day, and Sunday wasn’t much more exciting. Although I did go to church in the église Sainte-Hilaire, my favourite place in Melle. With it being an 800-year-old World Heritage Site, I felt quite lucky to be able to celebrate mass in such a beautiful building that’s only a 3 minute walk from my flat.

Today also involved receiving lesson plans from the teachers I’ll be working with this week, which was a little bit scary, especially as there are going to be inspectors present in 2 of my classes. Obviously they’re there to inspect the main teachers and not me, but it’s still a little disconcerting!

Oh and I also made myself a sort of Croque Madame for lunch earlier, which I got quite excited about. Here it is, my first attempt at trying to adopt a more French way of life:

That’s actually quite a long post for having done so little this weekend, but my lovely boyfriend’s waiting to Skype me, so I shall bid you all au revoir.