A long time ago in a land far away

In 1962 my parents took the year off from work so we could travel around the world. This was not a world cruise but a series of adventures on planes, trains, automobiles, busses, cable cars, and boats. After our plane ran off the end of the runway into the sea in Mogadishu, and my father nearly being stabbed by an enraged restaurant owner in Aden, where we staying before catching the P&O Cathay to Japan, things went quite smoothly on our odyssey. We sailed from Japan to the US on the P&O Iberia where we met several passengers who were doing the whole world cruise on her. I was intrigued by the notion that you could stay on the ship for several months, and avoid getting lost in the mountains of Japan, dragging the large suitcase of my mother’s designer gowns on and off trains, or as I later experienced, sleeping on Greyhound busses because there was no money for a motel that night. At the age of 8 I decided that this was something to be added to my equivalent of a bucket list. Then we sailed from New York to Southampton on the original Queen Elizabeth. It was the highlight of a very wonderful year, and the start of my addiction to Cunard ships.