I also wanted to have a place where I could keep my travel journaling, my photos, and my memories. Now that everything is digital, it would be a great way to save all of this for my children and their children. It is a great way to share my journeys with my friends on the internet too. And all my new peeps I meet along my way. 

We all get so busy in life and it's tough to stay in touch with everyone. Sharing your journey through blogging is what I believe to be a good way to keep in touch. 

My story.... 

Born a gypsy ... is how I embraced all the traveling. I don't have any childhood friends because of two reasons: we moved around a lot and I was very shy. 

My parents went to Stanford University in northern California. I was born in the Stanford University hospital.  My father joined the United States Naval Academy and we moved to Norfolk, Virginia while he was at Annapolis.  From there, he was stationed in Germany and we moved to Europe. 

Living in Germany was very interesting from the perspective of a child, which I was during the four years we lived in Germany during the Cold War.  My father was an officer and was a Navy Seal and Naval Intelligence. We did not live on the Navy base. We lived on the border of West and East Berlin. We spoke German. We went to German schools. We had German neighbors... 

During the summer and winter breaks we traveled all around Europe from skiing in Berchtesgaden in the German and Austrian Alps to wonderful summer breaks in Italy, Sicily being our favorite.  I will share my memories of some of the places. Italians love children. My mother had 4 children and in Germany during that time, it was unheard of to have more than one or two at the most. Oh ... the stares we would get!  And in France... the sickening smell of cigarette smoke everywhere made me sick and as a child I felt the people there to be very snobby and cold. 

My parents started divorce proceedings while we were living in Germany. My mother moved to Palo Alto California to continue to study for her PHD at Stanford University with my younger sister and youngest brother while my brother two years younger and I stayed to live with our dad for 2 years. 

We then were flown back to Palo Alto to live with our mother. My father bought us a house in Menlo Park California and there we went through our preteen to teen years. 

My grandparents ( my father's parents) lived in San Francisco.  The saying is so true: you leave your heart in San Francisco. 

I loved the city, and still to this day, it is my favorite big little city in the world. I know the streets there so well, I don't get lost... 

We called my grandparents, Mimi and Gramps.  Mimi and Gramps would drive to Menlo Park on Fridays after they got off of work to pick me and my siblings up for the weekend.