“I was from a small village in Salzburg in the province. In these days you had no internet so you didn’t know anything about the big wide world. You had to read books and not just watch YouTube videos. So that’s what I did. I read a lot. I read a lot about the world. I was hungry for adventure. I wanted to get out in the world and see the jungles of Africa and India. But I had no plan how to do that. But an aunt of mine and her husband -also from the same village - they went to Africa... Whenever she came back she brought mangos and ivory jewelry and sometimes a tusk... That just put more fire under me to go out and explore the world. So she said , ‘Why don’t you join the foreign service. You can travel the world. Live in different countries’... So I was like ok and applied and they took me...”
