Category: Travels for Fun
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ON TOP OF THE (GERMAN) WORLD
Last Sunday was one of those frigid, yet super clear days that only seem to come around a few times each winter. We were showing Padma’s brother’s family around and were staying with our friends Karl-Heinz and Hiltrud Linke in their little village of Illerbachen. As the sun rose on a very frosty morning, Karl-Heinz […]
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DROP IN IF YOU’RE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Just a few weeks ago I received an email from a genealogist in Switzerland. He found a 1928 photo I posted online of some distant cousins in Wisconsin and wanted some details. I sorted out his enquiries and he was most grateful. He said ‘If you’re ever in the Bernese Alps, drop in.’ I don’t […]
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WEBERT. OLBERODE. ANCESTRAL HOME.
‘What’s your mother’s maiden name’? How many times have I had to answer that question? ‘Webert,’ I answer. But for most of my life it was only a name. A name I knew nothing about. And a name my mother knew little about. A few years ago I got bitten by the genealogy bug and […]
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ALSACE. GERMAN OR FRENCH?
One of the few things I remember from high school history is the story of Alsace-Lorraine. It’s a region in present-day eastern France that has been claimed by both France and Germany and as a result has changed hands several times over the past two centuries. Traditionally the people of the region speak a dialect […]
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AMPELMANNCHEN
Not much of East Berlin remained intact after reunification. The West invested billions to rebuild the infrastructure. But when the German administrators suggested that all pedestrian crossing signals adopt the signals used in the West, the East Berliners kicked up a fuss. There was no way they were going to give up the beloved ‘Ampelmann’ […]
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THEY’RE TAKING ME TO MARRAKECH
I spent much of my youth hearing Graham Nash singing about the Marrakech Express. It was a big hit in the early 1970s and always on the radio. I often visualized about that train with ‘ducks and pigs and chickens’ and ‘charming cobras in the square’. Marrakesh seemed like some exotic, far off land in […]
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MORE CAMERAS THAN TULIPS
It’s tulip time and the bulbs are blooming in full force in Holland Zuid. So Padma and I set out to cure our spring fever and travelled to the land of tulips over the weekend. Our destination was Keukenhof Garden, a 32-hectare garden dedicated to all bulby things growing in spring. We first drove around […]
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OLAV OF BYNESET
I hit a brick wall once. A genealogical brick wall, that is. For five years I had been trying to find out where my great grandfather, Ole Erickson Gaustad, came from. I was getting nowhere and figured I’d never find out. But one night in 2007, I was Googling ‘Gaustad’ and the village where I […]
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ON! ON! IN ALGARVE
After a long hiatus, the Halab Hash House Harriers re-grouped and held a run on 8 April. Regrettably it was not in our home base of Aleppo. Instead, we ran in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. Long-time ICARDA staff member and current resident of Praia da Luz, Peter ‘Beep Beep’ Eichorn, asked his new […]
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