We arrived in Frankfurt April 30, after spending almost the whole month in Asia, and the contrast could hardly have been greater. Rather surprisingly, Germany almost felt like home, even though we hadn’t been there in over 40 years. 
    Part of it was no doubt that contrast–Germany seemed much more familiar than any place we visited in Asia.  The weather, the dress, the faces, the food, the traffic–all similar to home; all startlingly different from Asia.  We opted to break-up the long journey home from Dubai by laying over in Germany where perhaps we could begin to re-adjust to home. Plus, it would give us a chance to do a little ancestor tracking. We’re glad we did, even if only for five days.
    Our approach to Germany was almost the opposite of our mode in Asia, where most things, from meals to accommodations to tours, were pre-arranged. In Germany our only reservation was for our Ford Focus, to be picked-up when we arrived at Frankfurt International. That’s it. No hotels, just an idea that we wanted to visit some places we knew some ancestors had left or once lived.

    After all the walking we welcomed a shift to taxis and trains.  We needed a break and besides it would take way too long to walk to Scotland.  Traveling by taxi from Robin Hoods Bay to Scarborough, and onward via train to York, our intrepid foursome parted ways there.  Gail and Nanci stopped-off in York to sample its many charms, while Janet and Stu continued on to Huddersfield in pursuit of some family history.
    Now, Huddersfield is not your big-time tourist destination (it’s in the Midlands between Leeds and Manchester).  In fact our guidebooks didn’t even mention it.  Nevertheless we ended up in a good hotel in the center of an historic city that retains a certain workaday charm. We toured the impressive looking church where some of Janet’s ancestors were baptized and did family research in the city library.  We found the location of West Parade, a street that no longer exists, where one of Janet’s ancestors made artificial legs and operated an inn.  We couldn’t be sure if any of the buildings there now dated from the 1850s or earlier when they lived on the street. We were pleasantly surprised to find a small, quite good Caribbean restaurant for dinner.