March 26, 2008.

I'm planning a big trip to Europe in the next few months -- and I'm also looking for a job. So what better time to start a site than now? Hope you enjoy. Expect more updates once this is built.

Since this will also function as my travel blog, I figure I'll start at the very beginning of my travels.

I've been going to Germany every few years since I was one. My mother is 100% German (she has the citizenship to prove it), so that makes me over 50% German (my brothers and I always assumed that my dad had some German in him, too, despite the fact that my very American grandparents always made us call them Mémère and Pépère). I have great memories of my German grandmother's huge dinners with the mysterious green cabbage mush that I don't think I was brave enough to try till I was 12 and then fell in love with; of relatives slipping 20 Marks in my hands and whispering "Don't tell your mom" in my ear; of my mom warning me never to take beer when Opa offered it; of Opa offering me beer that I, like a model child, always turned down (I hate how beer tastes); of bike rides and broken bike chains; of a side trip to a semi-nude (by American standards, at least) beach in northern Germany when I was 9ish and hadn't brought my bathing suit and my mom tried to convince me it was OK to just wear shorts (yeah, right; I am an all-American prude); of weddings and anniversaries and birthdays and amazingly delicious white asparagus; of my grandfather's tractor and how I wasn't old enough to ride it until it became un-cool to ride it (the pains of being the baby and the daughter); of walking sticks and swings and croquet and that random globe ball I played with when my brothers and I stayed there for a month alone; of this house:

...and this town:

March 25, 2008

Welcome to my portfolio/travel blog. My name is Amy and I am a recent University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill grad. I love traveling and writing, so expect a lot of that here.