Bremen was probably the city I was most excited to visit, probably because it was one of the few German cities I actually knew something about before coming here. The main thing I knew about Bremen was the fairy tale of Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten, or the Bremen Town Musicians, which we had read in class. The main reason I was excited to visit Bremen, though, was to see the city where some of my family may have lived.
I knew before coming to Germany that a lot of my ancestors came to America from Germany, but I didn’t know exactly where, so I asked my grandma if she knew anything more specific. She told me that her grandmother was either from Bremen or Hamburg and her grandfather was from somewhere in Bavaria. Since “somewhere in Bavaria” is pretty vague and we weren’t making a group trip to Hamburg, I was excited to have a chance to see at least one place where my family may have come from.
While I may not ever know for sure if my great-great-grandmother was actually from Bremen, the idea of being where she may have lived made my visit to the already beautiful city that much more special to me. Bremen has a lot of more medieval-style architecture than the other cities we’d been to, which made it stand out. My favorite area was the Schnoor, which used to be the old fishing village of Bremen. The narrow streets full of small shops were like something out of a movie, and it was fun exploring them during our free time.
