In 1955 I started my senior year in Stuyvesant High School. I met a girl through our multi-church group named Ellen Harvey. We were very interested in each other but my mother thought that I was too young to be involved in this sort of thing and effectively put an end to it. My mother wanted to visit her family in Germany before her mother died also (her father died in 1953) seeing that she had not been back home since 1933. My parents could not afford the fare for my sister and me to accompany her but allowed us to go if we could come up with the money. I could, from the salary that I had saved from my after school job. To take advantage of the lowest fares, we left a week before my graduation from high school. This was my first time flying; we took a four engine (prop) Lufthansa flight from NYC to Gander, Newfoundland, to Prestwick in Scotland, to Frankfurt, Germany. A smaller plane brought us to Nürnberg and two buses and a street car got us to Eibach, my grand parents home. A short walk from the bus stop brought us to my Aunt Mathilda's house and her daughter Gerti drove us to my Aunt Frieda's house where my Grandmother lived. She was the only one of my grandparents that I ever met. It was hard to get close to this 85 year old lady with whom I could not communicate directly because of the language barrier. After a long hug and much animated speaking, she brought out a bottle of gin and we all had a shot or two. After a long visit Gerti drove us to my grandfather's now vacant grocery store and we moved into the apartment behind it. In the next few days we spent a lot of time with my Aunt Matilda and her husband Georg and their daughter Gerti and her husband Gerd who all lived at the same address and we met my Aunt Helena and Uncle Ludwig and their family, my Uncle Martin and Aunt Margarete, my Aunt Rosa and her son Werner. A few days later we all attended Werner's wedding to Eva. Some 25 years later my daughter Debi met their daughter Doris. Just about that time the whole family gathered to celebrate my 17th birthday. We all had a good time; I think the plan was to get me drunk - it worked.