Belated updates on travels

I have two things to report on, primarily through photos...

First, I went to Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Stadt=city) a few weeks ago with Anna and some people from her church (mostly Americans who came to help with the English camp they did a few weeks ago). Wittenberg isn't far from Berlin - maybe an hour and a half? - so we made a day trip. We were fortunate to have beautiful weather and we had a great time. Wittenberg is really just a little Dorf (=small town) with some historical landmarks - quite charming and peaceful. Luther really is the star of the town - everything there is Luther this or Luther that. Luther became an extremely important figure in German history, not just in church history, and was especially celebrated in the 19th century as Germany was forming a united national identity for the first time.

Wittenberg photos

Then last week I traveled to Cologne for the Fulbright/Pedagogical Exchange Service orientation/seminar. I arrived early and had a little bit of time to check out Cologne before meeting the bus to the orientation site, which was outside Cologne in a town called Altenberg. We stayed and had all our sessions at an old monastery which had been turned into a sort of hostel/retreat center. So I didn't get to see much of Cologne, but what I did see was nice, it didn't seem very tourist-friendly (although there were tons of tourists there). There were several things I tried to see/visit but either couldn't find or couldn't find entrances to or the opening hours were wrong, etc. But it's a nice city.

Cologne photos

The monastery in Altenberg really was beautiful. Orientation was interesting - we had a sort of crash-course in teaching English with a handful of wonderful German English teachers. The main teacher for my group actually did a teacher-exchange year in Philadelphia, so it was really interesting to hear her impressions! We had to do mock-lessons and when we weren't teaching a lesson we had to play student, which at times became quite amusing. Scattered inbetween these coaching sessions were a handful of very unhelpful information sessions about insurance, banking, etc. Mostly repetition of things we already knew from all the stuff they sent us over the summer, interspersed with some really stupid questions from some of the teaching assistants. And of course at night there was nothing to do except drink beer that the program directors were selling, so the evenings weren't so much fun either for the few of us who weren't interested in getting drunk at orientation. (Couldn't they at least wait until they got to their cities and could go to a real bar?) But in general, it was nice, and I met some cool people, including several who are also in Berlin.

Pictures of the monastery

This week I've been back at school and having a great time. Some of the classes have been a bit hyper but it's still fun and I love them all. Tomorrow I'm staying in the afternoon to see what sorts of things they do (since they have to stay at school until 4 but usually don't have class after 2) and if there are ways for me to volunteer.