Fall Presentations

The nicest thing about October, here, is the constantly changing color of the leaves on the trees. Over the past week, I was able to capture some nice images of the park next to our home. Hopefully, over the next little while, I'll have some time to spend outdoors just to enjoy all of this.

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Autumn in the park.

Last week I had the honor of making a presentation to some teachers in the York University Additional Qualifications program. It's always fun to see them actually use the song tracks to perform their own lyrics, karaoke style. Check out these pictures of some of the teachers as they perform for their peers.

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Groups of teachers performing new lyrics to our songs.

Over the next little while, I'll be making presentations to foreign language teachers in Lansing, Michigan and Indianapolis, Indiana during their annual conferences. I'd love to meet anyone who happens to be in the vicinity during conference times. Please drop me a note and perhaps we can chat over coffee.

The Amazing Frankfurt Book Fair

I realize I haven't posted much on the blog lately, but I've just arrived home from the Frankfurt Book Fair.

I'd heard, for many years, about the fair in Frankfurt, but you truly can't imagine what it is like unless you see it for yourself. I liken it to a Disney World for bibliophiles.

Each year almost 300,000 visitors descend on Frankfurt to visit the stands of more than 7,000 exhibitors. The fair lasts a week and is enormous. Attendees can hop on shuttle buses from one hall to the next. In total, there are nine halls and some of them, like Hall No. 5, even have two levels!

It was exhilarating to meet distributors and publishers from all over the world (the U.K., Belgium, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, India, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, South Korea, Jordan, Egypt, U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia come to mind), who are concerned, first and foremost, with the well being and education of children.

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Wil and me at our booth and me standing with Metod Boèko of DZS d.d. Educational Publishing, a company in Slovenia.

Apart from the fair, getting around Frankfurt was quite the challenge. Luckily, as exhibitors, we could take the trains free of charge. We even got to see a lot more of the countryside than we expected because of a few navigation mistakes. If Wil, who speaks German, hadn't been with me, we probably would have fared much worse with our directions!

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The train station in Frankfurt, outside and inside.

I found Frankfurt (and Germany in general) to be smoky! It's a difficult situation if you're allergic to cigarette smoke. People smoke in restaurants everywhere! They even smoke at the book fair!

We found accomodation in the historic town of Höchst. Here, we sampled meals in the various restaurants but were very surprised to see that almost all of the locals brought their dogs along to the restaurant too! Some people might joke that Höchst has gone to the dogs!

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Views of historic Höchst.

Our "home away from home", a boat called the Hotelschiff Peter Schlott, was docked on the Main River (a tributary of the Rhine) in Höchst. The weather turned out to be great on our last day of work. What a wonderful place to wind down and enjoy a glass of German beer.

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Me, alongside our riverboat and taking a break from the busy book fair.