Sunday, 4 October Note: If you are reading this only in email and not going to the website, you are missing all the fantastic photos! It was dark when I woke, showered and did my final packing. Nicole picked me up at 6:00 for the one and a half hour drive in a light fog…

Saturday, 3 October After a good night’s sleep, I woke up and had a hot shower. Yesterday’s shower was at room temperature since I could not figure out the controls. As you know, every hotel bathroom has different shower controls, add that to European unfamiliarity. Yesterday Frank gave me an idea about the controls that…

Friday, 2 October Nicole and Frank picked me up before nine and we headed to Kempten, a nearby town with a car free historical district. Kempten is the oldest written reference of any German city, 50-15 BC. Nicole attended college at  Kempten University of Applied Sciences but busy as a job holding student had little…

Thursday, 1 October My flight arrived in Munich at 1:30 pm, about an hour behind schedule but not without a little drama. As we started to get ready for arrival, the stewardess had trouble waking up a woman in the row behind me. As soon as the captain told the crew “prepare for arrival” and…

Wednesday, 30 September For more than thirty years, I have been researching my family history, with my Italian ancestry proving to be particularly challenging. Naturally, the records are written by hand in Italian, and even dates pose a difficulty—appearing as long written numbers like milleottocentottantadue instead of simply 1882. However, recent advancements in AI have…