Friday Five - heritage!

1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from? I'm a mutt. Now, this is all complicated, but to the best of my knowledge, my maternal grandmother is Pennsylvania Dutch and English, and my maternal grandfather is Italian and Irish (he's a redhead). My paternal grandmother was German, and my paternal grandfather was Polish. But he was born in Scotland.

2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit? I would love to spend time in any of these countries actually. I've been to England, Germany, and Italy, but never Poland or Ireland. I would love to go to Ireland. It's so green. Well, from the pictures I've seen.

3. Which would you least like to visit? Why? I guess the idea of Poland scares me a little bit. I knew a couple of Polish guys in New York who were really proud of their cheekbones. When I think of Poland, I think it is still stuck in some WWII time warp, because that's the only history of the country I am familiar with.

4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage? Nope. My dad has gotten all weird and geneological lately--I think it's because all his relatives are dead and he keeps searching for, like, 7th cousins thrice removed to fill the void. So he's been telling me a little bit of family history, which I had previously been completely unaware of. For example, he told me about my great-grandmother who was keeping guns for the 1905 revolution. When the police came to their door, she got in bed with the guns and pretended to be giving birth so they wouldn't find the guns. Very exciting stuff. I'm planning on stockpiling a few guns for the revolution over here. It's too bad I can't add automatic weapons to my wishlist.

5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)? Grandparents, I guess on my paternal side. Being Communist Jews and all, in Germany--not such a hot idea to stay there, right? And I think my maternal grandfather is 1st gen American, and I think that my grandmother's family has been here longer because they are super-white, but when I called my parents to ask them they said they were too busy to talk to me. Har.

If you want to make up your own Friday Five for me to answer (which of course, I reserve the right to not answer, go ahead and email me.