English Language Centre Social Programme: Week 2

Well we're now nearing the end of Week three and I still haven't written up Week 2 yet :s Week 2 was bittersweet as many of the students I had gotten close to left on Friday. A large amount of the week was also spent preparing for the new arrivals - about 200 of them - with endless reams of photocopying, but I still managed to partake in a few interesting activities.

Pubs
A lot of our time this week was spent in the pub - it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it ;-) On Wednesday night, we took the students out for a quiet drink in town before heading to Opa for Spanish Way (a Spanish pop themed club night). Then on Thursday, we were back again, but this time we had party games (see below). Finally on Sunday, we invited the new arrivals down to the pub with us as a way for everyone to get to know each other. We insist that meeting friends for a chat in the pub is a key part of British culture; it's not that we are all alcoholics, I can't even drink!

Party games
On Thursday night, we all regressed back to infancy with an evening full of the games we used to play at birthday parties when we were five, including Pass the Parcel (a very difficult phrase for non-native speakers to understand), balloon races and Pin the Tail on the Donkey (played with a trunk and an elephant in China, apparently). I nearly scorched my Eeyore by leaving him too close to the disco lights and learnt a valuable lesson in fire safety.

Windsor
Our Saturday trip this week was to Windsor. The spectacular castle is of course the main attraction, but as I got to visit it last year, this time I had to stay with the students who were not interested in going inside. Instead, we went to Eton, which is incredibly picturesque. I loved how the street is so fragrant because every building has flowers hanging outside. We didn't take a tour of the college, but snooped around whatever was open. I think we were most impressed with the cakes at The Foxy Cake Co.