Book Synopsis
When I told my neighbor and friend Marjan that I was going to America the next day, he answered: “Sure, with a finger on the map!” "No, really, by boat..." I replied, "...that will sail in a bathtub!" he insisted. But in 1962 we really did travel from Trieste to New York, on the historic Italian Line 24,500-ton Vulcania. Since in socialism trips abroad were severely restricted, among other ways by making it impossible to buy foreign currency, we had to borrow significant dollars and marks from my uncle, who was in diplomatic service at the time. Another limitation was that the whole family was not allowed to leave the country. Thus my mother and brother stayed home while my father and I traveled to America. In any case, a postdoctoral salary would not have been sufficient for the whole family to live on for a year in America, and my brother was finishing his university studies in Ljubljana. The trip was a great adventure for me, a 14-year old.