Still alive!

I know, I know, I promised regular postings and look at this, more than a week without news of me already! But I have a good excuse for my absence from the blogging sphere. For the past three days I have been in Altenberg, a quaint little town half an hour away from Cologne, on a seminar/orientation course given by the PAD, the organization that has brought me here to Germany.
We were 180 people, from the States (the majority of the attendees), Great-Britain, Australia (represented by only one person from Melbourne), New-Zealand (only two Kiwis were there) and of course Canada, with its five representatives: two from Toronto, one from Victoria, one from Fredericton, and you will surely all agree, the most important from Montreal!!!!
We stayed in a converted monastery, which was very quaint and cosy (pictures to come soon!).
The three days that we spent there felt a little like camp- we all ate together in a big eating hall, at very fixed times. We shared rooms and bathrooms and our schedule was timed to the last minute. The only difference between this and camp is that at night, one of the classrooms was turned into a makeshift bar, and you could buy half liters of beer!
We were organized by Bundesland, which means that I spent the majority of the last three days with the other 34 people who will be working in Berlin. I met some interesting people and hope to see a few of them again soon.
We spent most of our time preparing lessons and acting them out in front of the rest of the class. This exercise, although not really meaningful to me, was really good for most of the other people, who have no teaching experience whatsoever (we are not here as teachers, only as assistants, so our role in the classroom is limited). Each lesson was observed by a real teacher, who made comments at the end of the lesson. My observer asked me if I had had teaching experience before, because he felt I was a natural, so I guess I will be OK this year!
I am presently in Düsseldorf, 20 minutes north-east of Cologne, at my friend Chris' house. I met him when I was in Australia and it is lovely to be spending a few days here with him and his boyfriend.
I will be back home on Sunday and promise to write more then!