For several years now, my cousin and I have been tracing our family’s ancestry. This is no small task given the immense size of our family. (Our grandmother had six children and she in turn was the youngest of eight). We finally pinpointed the birth place of our great-great-great grandfather to a small village in Germany.
My cousin and I decided to take a week’s vacation to visit our ancestor’s birth place and to do a bit of touring. I wish we hadn’t told the rest of the family because as soon as we did, everyone started requesting gifts from the motherland. I was surprised that there were more requests for German cuckoo clocks than for beer steins or other German tourist-y items.