Last week during easter break I had the chance to travel to Chile. I never thought that this small trip with my family would completely unveil my family history.
I remember we were dining in a fancy restaurant near the hotel we were staying in Puerto Varas, Chile, when my dad started talking about the small town of Valdivia an hour and a half from Puerto Varas. He said that the cousin of my grandfather was the owner of what started as a small brewing company in Valdivia.
I had already heard about the Kunstmann beer company in family reunions and its connection with the Telge family. Eager to learn more, we decided to visit Valdivia. Since we hadn't plan this trip we had really little knowledge about Valdivia, just what my grandparents had told us about my cousins living there.
The first impression that we took from Valdivia was that it was a relatively small town in Chile populated by German immigrants. I mean there was nothing to see, but as we started entering the town we arrived to the Kunstmann brewing company.
They had a restaurant in which we had lunch and then we decided to take the tour. In the tour they told us about how beer was made and a brief history about Valdivia and its brewing tradition brought by the Germans at the middle of the 19 century.
The fun part came when we saw the picture of the current owner Armin Kunstmann Telge. In fact he was the cousin of my grandfather and uncle of my father. What was even more amazing was that when we were leaving the tour, we actually had the surprise that Armin Kunstmann was outside and it was really fun to have a chat with him.
This kept me thinking about how little I knew about my family history. As I started to investigate more about how did the Telge family arrived to Lima. I realised that The my great great grandfather arrived to Valdivia during the middle of the 19 century in a boat full of german immigrants. There he had 3 children one of them was my great grandfather who came to Peru in search of my great grandmother. The other two stayed in Valdivia.
Sometimes it feels quite good to know where you come from.
I remember we were dining in a fancy restaurant near the hotel we were staying in Puerto Varas, Chile, when my dad started talking about the small town of Valdivia an hour and a half from Puerto Varas. He said that the cousin of my grandfather was the owner of what started as a small brewing company in Valdivia.
I had already heard about the Kunstmann beer company in family reunions and its connection with the Telge family. Eager to learn more, we decided to visit Valdivia. Since we hadn't plan this trip we had really little knowledge about Valdivia, just what my grandparents had told us about my cousins living there.
The first impression that we took from Valdivia was that it was a relatively small town in Chile populated by German immigrants. I mean there was nothing to see, but as we started entering the town we arrived to the Kunstmann brewing company.
They had a restaurant in which we had lunch and then we decided to take the tour. In the tour they told us about how beer was made and a brief history about Valdivia and its brewing tradition brought by the Germans at the middle of the 19 century.
The fun part came when we saw the picture of the current owner Armin Kunstmann Telge. In fact he was the cousin of my grandfather and uncle of my father. What was even more amazing was that when we were leaving the tour, we actually had the surprise that Armin Kunstmann was outside and it was really fun to have a chat with him.
This kept me thinking about how little I knew about my family history. As I started to investigate more about how did the Telge family arrived to Lima. I realised that The my great great grandfather arrived to Valdivia during the middle of the 19 century in a boat full of german immigrants. There he had 3 children one of them was my great grandfather who came to Peru in search of my great grandmother. The other two stayed in Valdivia.
Sometimes it feels quite good to know where you come from.