Merde!

I have my first French exam tomorrow and needless to say I have not really done enough work (too busy blogging!). Today I went to a conference in London and took my French book on the train with me in an attempt to do some last minute swotting. I was reading a rather dull paragraph about where people were going to go on holiday (a ploy to get the reader to practice the future tense) when a voice next to me said 'if you need any help, let me know, I am a French teacher'. The speaker turned out to be a Belgian man around my age. I told him that I had my exam tomorrow and we talked a bit about learning and teaching French and the importance of being able to communicate! As I got off the train he told me that in French rather than saying 'Bonne Chance' or good luck before an exam you say 'merde'(Shit). So he wished me merde and off I went!