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Contents

Acknowledgement
Foreword
Chronology

STORIES
1. Pajtás Aug. 1936
2. The Mysterious Stone Sep. 1937
3. The First Communion May 1940
4. Entering High School Sep. 1942
5. Slapping Simon Oct. 1942
6. I, the Secret Agent Nov. 1943
7. The Front Nov. 1944
8. A Spartan Wedding Jun. 1945
9. The Hedgehog Nov. 1945
10. Lake Balaton Aug. 1948
11. Losing Faith Sep. 1950
12. Starting First Year Sep. 1950
13. Under Suspicion Nov. 1950
14. Travelling Companions Jul. 1951
15. Mummies Jul. 1951
16. A Supper with my Uncle Aug. 1951
17. Krivoy Rog Nov. 1951
18. I Passed It Dec 1951
19. Corn Picking Oct. 1952
20. Ski Camp Dec. 1952
21. On the Frozen River Dec. 1952
22. The Stag Beetle Jun. 1953
23. Mineralogy Examination Apr. 1954
24. Lida Apr. 1954
25. Under Arrest May 1954
26. Moscow Arrival Feb. 1955
27. Olga Apr. 1955
28. Mary Jan. 1956
29. Visegrád Aug. 1956
30. Comrade Dachnovski Oct. 1956
31. No Return (Diary) Jan.-Jun. 1957
32. Naples Outing Jun. 1957
33. Crossing the Atlantic Jun. 1957
34. Arrival in Canada Jul. 1957
35. Dutch Treatment Jul. 1957
36. Starting Out Sep. 1957
37. Fredy Oct. 1957
38. Third Beach Jul. 1958
39. Sunday Visitor Aug. 1958
40. Alouette Lake Aug. 1959
41. He Blew It Sep. 1959
42. Ski Accident Dec. 1959
43. Long Beach May 1960
44. Lesser Slave Lake County Jun. 1961
45. The Gold Panner Jul. 1961
46. On the North Saskatchewan River Aug. 1961
47. An Uninvited Guest Sep. 1961
48. Do You Have Insurance? Oct. 1961
49. The Canadian Nickel Dec. 1961
50. The Steak Feb. 1962
51. Stampede Jun. 1962
52. Heavy Sand Jul. 1962
53. Swimming in the Athabasca Aug. 1962
54. Bear Encounters Sep. 1962
55. Lake Okanagan Aug. 1963
56. Black Ice Dec. 1963
57. Odd Campsites May. 1964
58. Hotel Brussels Jul. 1967
59. Coney Island Aug. 1970
60. Menu Milanese Jul. 1971
61. Zuppa di Pesce Jul. 1971
62. Parking in Bari Jul. 1971
63. Rendezvous in Dubrovnik Jul. 1971
64. The Vanished Bus Jun. 1972
65. The Lost Wallet Jul. 1972
66. Helsinki Jul. 1974
67. In the Fjord Country Jul. 1974
68. Branded Aug. 1974
69. Inky Cap Sep. 1975
70. Speeding Ticket Oct. 1975
71. Hotel Napoleon May 1976
72. Ugine Acier May 1976
73. Poppy Seeds Dec. 1976
74. On the Amazon Jan. 1977
75. Machu Picchu Jan. 1977
76. The Hydro Pole Jul. 1977
77. The Grapes of Wrath Jul. 1978
78. Tunisia on $0 a Day Apr. 1979
79. A Good Deed Aug. 1979
80. The Law Breaker Aug. 1979
81. The Collision Sep. 1979
82. In the Hoggar Jan. 1980
83. Peter's Visit Feb. 1980
84. The Wild Hog Apr. 1980
85. Along the Nile May 1980
86. Madame Docali Jun. 1980
87. Without Papers Aug. 1980
88. Someone on the Roof Sep. 1981
89. Newfies in Zambia Sep. 1981
90. Putzi Flies Oct. 1981
91. Fredrick Nov. 1981
92. Milou Dec. 1981
93. Snakes, All Kinds Feb. 1982
94. Flat Tire Aug. 1982
95. Walking Safari Aug. 1982
96. Ida Sep. 1982
97. Army Ants Oct. 1982
98. Night Acquaintances May 1983
99. My Last Thought Jul. 1983
100. An Ontario Driver Jul. 1983
101. Taj Mahal Jul. 1983
102. Grasshoppers Sep. 1983
103. Rafting on the Zambezi Sep. 1983
104. Tisza Nov. 1983
105. A Passing Martian Mar. 1984
106. Kasaba Bay Mar. 1984
107. The Key Deposit Apr. 1985
108. A Hungry Bear Aug. 1987
109. Cuajone Oct. 1988
110. A Deserting Husband Jun. 1989
111. Liancy Nov. 1991
112. Morocco Jul. 1992
113. Coup d'Etat Nov. 1992
114. Saltillo June 1993
115. Hola Apr. 1995
116. El Indio Apr. 1995
117. Land of the Inca Oct. 1995
118. The Ghost Aug. 1996
119. Baja California Mar. 1998
120. Climbing Kilimanjaro Sep. 1998
121. On the Equator Sep. 1998
122. High in the Andes Apr. 2000
123. Furnace Experience Nov. 2001
124. In China Sep. 2002

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Foreword

The following stories portray the most memorable moments of my life - some pleasant, some less so, and a few stressful or even scary - they were my best and worst life experiences. I wanted to record them before my memory begins to fade. My primary objective was to leave these stories as keepsakes for my grandchildren, just in case they ever want to know more about their grandfather, and where he came from. I encountered something unexpected during writing however. I learned that by retelling the events I experienced them again. They came back just as if they had happened yesterday.

Many of the stories relate incidents which took place during travels or during residence in foreign lands. This isn't surprising. Those are usually the most interesting periods in anybody's life, and I had my share of wandering.

While I was growing up, I - like most children - loved the excitement of travel. However, in my childhood such occasions were few and far between. In the 1930s travel was the privilege only of the rich in Hungary. My parents were working class people who could rarely afford occasional short trips out of our city.

Before the Second World War my family went to Mohács, a city on the Danube nearby, for swimming and picnicking every summer. We travelled on a special Sunday train, the 'Filléres' (Pennies). It was a 'non-stop' low price excursion train which covered the distance of 40 km in about two hours. Leaning out of the window of the coach, facing the caressing wind and watching the countryside passing by was the greatest pleasure that I, a child of 6 or 7, could imagine, at least until the inevitable sad moment, when a cinder from the stack of the steam locomotive would become embedded in my eye and make me cry. There followed my mother's reproaches to my father for letting me stand by the window rather than making me sit on the bench, as a well-behaved boy should do.

However, the incident would soon be forgotten. My excitement rose to another crescendo when we crossed the river in a ferryboat on the way to the beach. I loved to stand at the bow, leaning against the chain pulled across the retracted loading ramp, watching the waves as the boat cut its way toward the far shore.

I think these boat trips seeded the dreams of becoming a sea captain who would cruise the great oceans of the globe. This vision was greatly enhanced by adventure books such as Jules Verne's 'Fifteen-year-old Captain'.

The outbreak of World War II changed my real world and my fantasy world too. The excursions stopped for good. Many other pleasures of childhood like chocolates, candies and Xmas oranges disappeared. Later, as the tragic events came closer and closer to our home, life became extremely strenuous. Food was scarce even with ration cards. I spent school vacations on the farm of Uncle Lorenz in order to reduce the number of mouths to be fed at home. As the war went on, the shortage of heating coal in the winter and the abundance of American bombs in the summer aggravated life even more. Eventually, the war arrived at our doorstep. The front passed through our city quickly and caused only limited damage. However, to our misfortune, the front stabilized at 65 km from us for four months. We became a front line city which endured daily bombing raids from the Germans who still resisted strenuously. Russian soldiers occupied our house and stayed with us for months. The food shortages became worse and worse. At last the war was over. But now it was followed by Russian occupation. The food scarcity and non-availability of industrial products remained a permanent feature of our lives. The hyper-inflation following the war aggravated the situation even more. My outgrown and outworn clothing was impossible to replace. My mother tried her best by tailoring shirts from our camping tent, by re-tailoring a runaway policeman's cape into a winter coat, and by shoeing me with a pair of my grandfather's shoes miraculously saved from WW I. These measures kept me from freezing but could hardly help my self-esteem.

In these years I had lost interest in becoming a sea captain. However, my dreams of visiting distant and exotic lands remained very much alive.

A couple of years after the end of the war life started to improve. I became eager to test my wings and go beyond the confines of my native city. In the following years and decades I would seize every opportunity to travel.

My first trip was a bicycle odyssey to Lake Balaton. It brought more hardship than pleasure but it was an icebreaker. I learned only later that trips which don't go as planned might turn out to be the best.

My really great chance arose in 1950 when I won a scholarship to study in the Soviet Union. In those years this was the only possibility of going abroad. I jumped at the prospect enthusiastically - grabbing more than I expected. The five years spent there were difficult. The cultural shock was tremendous. I suffered from homesickness, especially in the first year. I had an incessant problem with the food. The monotonous diet of kasha (type of porridge), the only staple available and/or affordable to a student at that time, didn't sit well with me. The political/social system was also hard to take, although, as privileged, foreign student, I enjoyed more political freedom in the USSR than if I had stayed home and studied in Hungary.

I studied in Dnepropetrovsk, in the Ukraine. In the first couple of years, we foreign students were not allowed to leave the city. After Stalin's death in 1953, the travel restrictions were loosened, and we could visit some of the touristy places of the Soviet Union in groups. I wanted to take advantage of the new situation right away. Although, I always disliked organizing others, this time I reluctantly became the organizer of a group excursion to Leningrad - a city I had always wanted to see. When the time came for my diploma work, I selected a subject that took me to the Ural Mountains, the farthest point in the eastern USSR that a Hungarian student could get to in those days.

The only trip in my life that I took very reluctantly was leaving Hungary as a political refugee. But there I had little choice.

Although, my coming to Canada was accidental, ending up in Vancouver was a conscientious choice. This city was the farthest possible destination for political refugees entering Canada from Europe, and gave me the chance to cross the whole country before settling in.

In Canada I quenched my thirst for travel gradually, first by visiting the Provinces, then the States and finally, when our finances allowed it, overseas. The chance of working on overseas assignments came later. I loved that later challenge. The thrills of arriving at a strange place, meeting strange people, eating strange food, and the unexpected and many times unwanted but unforgettable adventures became memories to cherish.

My childhood fantasies about travelling and seeing the World have been fulfilled to a good degree:

- My family and I lived in four major Canadian cities - Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto - located in four different provinces. I visited all the other provinces.

- During my professional carrier I worked in nine different countries: Hungary, the Soviet Union, Canada, Algeria, Zambia, Morocco, Mexico, Chile and Peru (in chronological order).

- I visited 45 states of the USA and 52 countries of the world on five continents. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

The following stories depict the most memorable events of my life as they occurred, or at least as they stayed in my memory. All names, characters and places mentioned are true.

December 2002.

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