Where is your ancestral home? Most of us have roots in several places. Pick one city or country you'd like to visit, find it on a map, and explore some travel websites, just for practice. A few of my favorites are: multi-map, Rick Steves, Cheap Flights, Budget Travel.~ Someone found your blog and emailed you saying they're visiting the city where you grew up. Write an itinerary for a one-day tour of your hometown. Prompt: "When you're there, you can't miss____. There's a great view from____. My favorite place for lunch is_____, and the kids would love____."~Write a postcard to your grandma from someplace in Europe you want to visit someday.
In this part of town, the homes are often surrounded by white walls topped with a rainbow of broken bottles, the jagged edges stretch up like fingernails to catch those who would trespass. The gate at the drive opens into a mid-sized courtyard. There is no grass in the front, only a patchwork of concrete and stone large enough to hold a table for family dinner and a car or two (although no one here really has two cars).
The smells of fresh-baked bread waft over the wall from the bakery behind the house. The smell is heavenly, but it's a draw for bush-sized rats who find refuge in the shrubbery along the wall. Next door is the bakery store-front (as well as the owner's home). You stop by daily to check the progress on this week's wedding cake and also to admire the dainty sugar roses. A patron enters the store, noticing you and your sister standing there, she pinches your generous cheeks with a twinkly smile and asks if you are for sale. You giggle and the Head Cake Decorator passes a sugar rose across the counter, one for each of you.
Continuing down the the street and turning the corner, you pass a rain-stained stone church, the orange honeysuckles flower in profusion and tumble over the side. You stop and pull out one of the stringy centers of the bright orange trumpet flowers and taste the dew drop of nectar on the end of it (a favorite afternoon activity).
to be continued... Go back to school
