1. Visit The Country Your Ancestors Called Home

Number one on the list from Mr. King ... visit the country your ancestors called home. I consider this country to be Germany, although I am probably about 50% German. I scanned the images from my scrapbook that I created in 2002. It feels like it has been longer than 7 years since I've been there. Luckily I have my thick journal from my travels, and this is what I wrote: Monday, April 8th: Woke up in Germany! I feel like I've been gone for years! Went to Marienplatz to see the clock at 11. We found the hostel somehow, and checked in at 11:30, then slept til 2, and took showers (after a long night of train rides). Met an American for the first time traveling, and it figures that she was annoying. We went to Kuntzplatz to look for some dance clubs (note - this is something I would never do now). None were open yet, but it was interesting to walk around in Munich. It feels weird to just sit back and think of how things must have been and how they have changed. I would definitely like to come back to see some concentration camps, and Berlin. We went back to the hostel and found a German Pub with a cute old man as the bartender. He asked where we were going next, and I said Koln (Cologne), but he helped me pronounce the o (with two dots over it) He wrote it on a napkin. April 9th: We woke up and got breakfast at the grocery store. I had a cheesy pretzel. It was still kind of chilly weather, but not too bad. First we went to the science museum, which was excellent, but unfortunately about 90% in German explanations. We went back to Marienplatz to walk around. Went to the green onion domes. I ate lunch at a cafe. We walked around the English garden (out of the city for a bit). April 10th: Woke up at 5, and made the train at 6:47. We had an awesome train ride, parts along the river with castles out of story books...for miles and miles. Arrived in Koln and saw the Dom, an old Jewish bath house, and bought some of the "famous" cologne. We didn't stay in Koln, but took the train to Frankfurt Main. It was the wrong stop! We ended up taking a 2 hour train to Roshrue (sp?) in order to get back to where we needed to be. This wasn't the first or last time I would take the wrong train in Europe.