I was raised in Szombathely, my parents were born in Szombathely, I was born in Szombathely and most my life before I came to the US, I stayed in Szombathely. I went to Kindergarten, elementary school and a so called “gymnasium” there. e gymnasium was like a high school there but it was a little bit higher level then the high schools here in the US. I studied languages, it was like a language focusing high school. When I was six years old, my parents put me in a French class in the elementary school, so I was studying French. When I was nine years old, there was a significant thing in my life knowing that I lived in a communist party country, because my uncle, who was Austrian, he always took me to Austria every summer for three months. at opened up my eyes a little bit, for the freedom the Austrian people have more than in my country. I remember we needed an invitation letter to go every summer. It was so much difference that country than my country was. I studied for the next eight years French and aer that, that is how I get into the high school. Beside the French I graduated also from another language, German. Because I spent every summer, three months in Austria, I studied German too. Also for 13 years we had to study Russian too, which was compulsory. I did not like it but I was really good at it. I also studied Italian too for a year, but I never studied Spanish or English before I came here to the US.
Because I was in Austria every summer, I really started to like foreign languages.
Because of that and because my uncle (this is a different uncle than the one in Austria) was a vice president of a bank, he put me in a bank when I was 18. I started to work then. I worked with foreign money exchange and that is how I went through a few certifications. I studied a whole bunch of things. That is how I got to the Austrian-Hungarian border. My boss was an Austrian, we had German language meetings. So I got a really good job there.
My mom was a really sweetheart. She and my father were baptized in the Catholic Church but they never exercised their faith. Maybe, as like a tradition in Hungary, they went once in a year at Christmas time to the Catholic church but I was never baptized. Actually my uncle, who was this vice president of the bank, he was a big communist party leader. at is how my mom and dad got their apartment. He was kind of like a Godfather to us. When I worked in the bank, and wore a cross around my neck, he told me that, come to my office” and he said:” I forbid you to wear that!” But I said, “No, I am gonna wear that and nobody can tell me not to wear a cross around my neck.” It was a gold medallion. He was very mad at me. My father was really mad at me, because he said, “What are you doing with your family?” So in the region, I became a black sheep in my family. After my mom died, I just could not believe she was not there anymore and I felt her spirit. I started to be interested in religion more. She was such a good example to me. She did not exercise the Catholic faith but she always went to the neighbors and brought some cookies and cakes and she took care of others, so I learnt from her to be nice and kind to the people and strangers too.