What a different world it was when I first sailed for Europe in 1930, with my mother, sister, and brother to spend six months abroad.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Since I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to sail around the world.
Most of my father's life consisted of traveling to almost every part of Europe.
I was very fortunate to grow up with parents who love to travel, so I traveled from a young age. My dad's a heart surgeon and goes to conferences all over the world. By the time I was seven, I traveled outside the country for the first time. We went to Paris. The next year, we went to London, and then Brussels.
I spent years overseas. I spent 11 years abroad.
My parents took me around the world when I was young, so I caught the bug. Every person is different when he travels, and every travellers' story is uniquely his own.
My mother would take groups of students to different countries and always brought us along, so by the time I was 10, I had been to Russia, China, Nicaragua and several other countries.
I sailed around Europe and lived with the Karen tribe in Thailand for a month.
When I was 12, we began hosting exchange students from Norway, Sweden, Japan and Spain. I soon realized there was a whole world out there. I was determined to spend my sophomore year in high school abroad. My school taught only Spanish, but I wanted to go to France, and I did.
I arrived in the U.S.A. in 1935, to San Francisco. I got the boat from China, and I didn't even speak English. I could read a little, perhaps write a little, but that was all. It was a 17-day journey, and I learnt to speak English from the stewards.
I spent my entire childhood living abroad because of my father's occupation, so we were on long-haul flights all the time.