The Journey

I don’t know when the travel bug bit me. All I recall ever wanting to do since high school was travel. It probably started with a bus trip to Montreal in 1986. By my undergraduate college years the first plane trip took me to Ponce, Puerto Rico during a winter session program with Seton Hall University, January 1988. When the opportunities presented themselves, despite lack of financial resources I was on a plane. In 1989 I found myself in Oslo, Norway for six weeks, on an International Summer School Program. I added an additional week to my time in Scandinavia to travel to Sweden and Denmark. From that summer experience I soon found myself heading somewhere out of America to explore new worlds, ALONE, biyearly, from 1992 until 1998! Through my journey of professional and educational development, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to many countries for conferences and out of curiosity. One of my professional affiliation during that time was with the International Council of Psychologists (ICP). Attending ICP conferences around Europe & Canada were the final destination while I travelled to neighboring countries. In 1992 I covered London, BENELUX (Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg). That year’s conference took place in Amsterdam. In 1994 I made it to Madrid, Segovia, La Granja, Toledo, Lisboa (where the conference was taking place), Cabo da Roca, and Sintra. My final attendance of an ICP conference was in 1996 which took place in Alberta, Canada. The conference was held in Banff. When it ended, I boarded a bus, touring the Rocky Mountains, to Vancouver where I met up with my summer school room mate from Norway. I completed the rest of my stay with her in Burnaby and she took me to Whistler and Gastown and we ate at Bridges. [In 1998, I was in Kingston, Jamaica for a long weekend attending a wedding of another friend whom I met in Norway as well. During that short stay in Jamaica, I had the opportunity to make it to Ochos Rios.] My ultimate travel experience took me to Japan in 1998. For two years I lived and worked in Agatsuma-gun, Gunma. While in Japan I lived it up but no longer alone. I found myself with a fantastic, frugal travel friend. We made sure to cover as many corners of Japan as we could. When we weren’t doing it up (or was it more, commiserating) in Japan I was getting to the neighboring Asian countries with my Kiwi cohort (refer to “Memories of Japan” gallery). The professional connections continue. My thrill of adventures led me to living & working in Southern California. My experience(s) in Japan prepared me for my current position as a Clinical Site Manager at an Asian agency. My APT affiliation took me to Sri Lanka. A colleague from Sri Lanka led me to SAMHSA/Westover Consultants, taking me to New Orleans to help out with the Katrina/Rita/Levee devastation.