No we didn't do any traveling when we were in school. We can't afford it. We just go on ski trips. Save up all the money. You know spend all the spare money on skiing trips. No money for anything else. In those days, lots of students all go to camp to work. I didn't have to, so I just fooled around in you know, London, and have a good time. After we got laid off, then we got time. I was about 40, so what am I gonna do with time? And traveling we came to, we travelled all over the world until there's no where to go. The organized tours, we've been to most of them. Nah, at that time, didn't have that many.
At 70, we still do some traveling. Mema never liked to travel. You remember when went to Beijing together, and I was with the stick. That was really, you know stopped traveling a few years prior to that, but joined you guys to go to Beijing once. And afterwards, mema really refused to travel, so we kind of stopped.
Well the one that left the biggest impression on me was when Russia first opened up. Gorbechuv was the big cheese, and he talked to Ronald Reagan. I think he liked the US way, but didn't really like the Russian way, although he was the big shot in Russia, runs the government then, so he decides to open up Russia and tourism. I was one of the first ones. We went to quite a few of the first opened ones. You know, we went through, I remember I went through Moscow and all that. Your dad was with me. He was scared. He was worried about KGB. Hotels, heard rumors about don't dare to talk, all that. That was the time, I was remember, he said how about let him stay with mom in one room. Let me stay in the other room, huh? You know fine, I did that. So he was scared to be by himself, alone.
He must be staying in school. He went, Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan days, 1980 something . I don't know. His birthday is what? 1962. or 3. Right? Yea, so 1984-5 kind of time is uh Ronald Reagan and in Iceland, they agreed on you know have a closed agreement. The first meeting, they did not agree on anything. The second meeting, they start to agree. Gorbachev wants Reagan to do certain things, and the Reagan government do it, so they finally come back and say how about that. Finally, they decided to join, they do something. One thing is to open up for tourism, and we went, quickly.
I always liked Paris. I thought that was nice. I remember Notre Dame. They talk about somebody lives up top, way up on the nobody knows and all that. Talk about the story, and the museum, I went to see the Mona Lisa. I was not impressed with Mona Lisa. I didn't think that was such a good painting. They talk about how good it is. Now you go look, you may, I'm sure you think it's you see all the great stuff, but I have no idea. You have seen it right? How was it? It was good, right? How come? I thought, they really talk about the, you know the corner of her mouth, the smile, you know achieve certain things by certain methods. Detailed description, I don't know what they're talking about at all.
I remember, I was more impressed with Milan. That last dinner, in front of the wall. The Last Supper, yea that was kind of fading away. It's very low. I think they probably retouched it. I don't know how they do it. They retouched it to make it a little bit more visible without losing any of the I don't know good quality. I always remember that was in the middle of, it's not a very impressive building. It's on the wall. It doesn't look, dingy wall, and the painting was there. You know those kind of very famous ones, the world famous.
I remember we were on top of Switzerland. I remember that cup of hot chocolate was so good, cold, high on the peak, and their hot chocolate was good quality. I really remember that was a good cup of hot chocolate. Eh. We went up on the train. In Switzerland, we took one day, just go on a train and go through so many holes in the mountain. They just dig a hole in the mountain, the train goes through, so you see daylight. You see darkness and all that. It was quite impressive. I think your dad was with us on that trip.
We did quite a few trips together. I think one in uh this place called bora dabour in Indonesia. They dug up, and the place was burried under ashes from the volcano from hundreds of years. They said the United Nations spent money to dug it up, and that became one of the historic things. We were on a cruise ship. Came off and climbed up to that level, so that was very high, but they say that it's one of the world famous things too.
I always regret I did not go inside the pyramids in Egypt. We get to the gate, and they said the power failed. You couldn't, you know, totally pitch black inside. It's a tomb, so we didn't go in. We rode the camel from somewhere to the entrance of the pyramid. And I looked back and mema was also on the camel. She was scared half to death. Rode the camel really around the neck area, and we look back and your dad was in a carriage with an old lady. He didn't want to go on the camel. That was the highlight. We paid a lot of money to ride. No that's he didn't wanna do that.
Place was on the greek islands. It's on the steep hillside. You know, the road goes zig zag zig zag up the hill. We rode donkeys, and those donkeys were, they know the road so well. They try to rub your leg against, you know, the side of the hill. You have to pull them hard until their mouth hurts more than they want to hurt you. They teach you how to do it, so we did that. Your dad didn't want to do it. He just said he'll walk. So he never like to ride any of the animals.
I went on the basket on top of a big elephant, somewhere. And then you saw the picture of me on the parachute. That was fun. That was in US. I think that was in Coeur D'Alene, on one of the lakes. In the north somewhere. No not in the north. We came, we went through one of the national parks in Canada, that goes through I something. Went through a national forest, and come to the lake in the US. There were boats with parachutes, so I want to ride. I rode that thing, and CY didn't want to go up. I always thought he was a qualified pilot. He didn't want to go on parachute, so he took the pictures of me up on that thing and down. I was happy with that thing. That was a good 12 years ago already. Well, did a lot of traveling everywhere.
But I did not go to South Africa, where I thought mema would like to go to see diamonds, but not. It's too far. We didn't do that. I always wanted to see Jerusalem, I never did. Lotta places I haven't gone to Antarctica, but I was on the other side of the straight. I was at the place at the very tip of South America. At the very tip, there's an island we were there, and just only have to hop over to the other side with a small boat.
Yea, well it was not that far.