In the heat of the night

Yesterday and today more than made up for my downer of a Tuesday. I had two days of rewarding lessons with the kids, and tonight I finally met some other assistants/young people!

CouchSurfing has been a godsend for socialising - it found me my VIP seats at the rugby last Saturday, and it also put me in touch with Anna, the girl to my right on the photo above. She's American, and a serial work-abroader, and a great deal of fun too. I met her on CouchSurfing and she invited me out for drinks this evening. After lots of Facebook-based stalking she had successfully tracked down the other assistants in Montluçon, and we all met for the first time over drinks this evening.

Despite being relatively poorly connected, I've been here the longest and so I knew exactly which bar to recommend for a fun Friday night - Le Prestige. It's garishly decorated and has a big set of French doors which are always open to the street of an evening, meaning you can often hear the Eurodance music blaring out as you walk by. Bliss.

As well as me and Anna, the picture above shows Naomi and James, two other Brits who are here doing the same thing as me. (There are also some others who aren't pictured, although they arrived late last night so I didn't see much of them). The whole group is really nice, and most importantly FUN! I've been raring to get drunk and dance since I arrived and tonight was the night. Our party spirit was clearly picked up on by the barman, who brought us free tequila shots to go with the ones we'd paid for. Free tequila shots, can you imagine!?

Understandably, we were all fairly eager to move on to a club, which Montluçon kindly provided in the form of The White Club. Despite sounding somewhat like a Ku Klux Klan meeting hall, the club itself was very welcoming, and we danced madly to all the delightfully fun and shameless dance music which still charts here. (The photo was taken at this stage of the night).

After wearing our little feet out, we shared a taxi home - by a stroke of luck, Naomi and James live just around the corner from me - and I staggered to bed exhausted and exhilarated. And we're doing it all again tomorrow!