| James Simon: To my relatives in Hungary... | Hello all,
I am James, brother of Mary and son to Joan and Terry Simon. I have followed along with all of your correspondence with my family so far. I am so glad that they were able to contact after all of these years.
As you have probably heard, I am 26, I live in Victoria, British Columbia and work for the Canadian Navy as a radar operator. I have been stationed on one of our Area Air Defence Destroyer's the "HMCS (Her Majesty's Canadian
Ship) Algonquin for the last year. I have been lucky enough to travel quite bit in that time and have visited Seattle, San Diego, Anchorage and Pearl Harbour in the US, as well I was able to participate in a goodwill trip this
last summer to Japan, China and South Korea. I am enjoying my work very much and they are in turn allowing me to finish my studies by correspondence.
Before joining the Navy I went to the University of Calgary and studied Canadian/Military History. I am still working on my Bachelor of Arts Degree while I work. I know a small amount of knowledge about Hungary's history... more specifically the Invasion of the Monguls, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire surrounding the First World War, World War Two and
the resistence, as well as the Cold War and the uprising of 1956. But all of this is very general and not too indepth.
My father and I were comparing Hungary's size the other day to Canada and the province of Alberta that we are in. Hungary fits 7 times into our province and is similiar in size to an island off of our west coast called Vancouver Island (were I am currently stationed). I was amazed to note that your country's population is over 10 million, where our whole country is only 32 million... with Alberta and British Columbia comprising only 5 million together. The countryside in Hungary must be a lot more developed
than it is here and almost every inch of land must be spoken for I am sure.
Once we recieve your e-mail address by regular mail I have asked my father to forward it to me, so that I can keep in touch with you as well. I hope that your holidays were full of rest, relaxation and little bit of fun. It
has been a wonderful time these last few days spent at home with my family and friends. I have been fortunate enough to have been able to spend the last 3 Christmas's in a row with my family while I am serving in the Navy.
My ship is on ready alert as of the 27th to sail, so I fly back to Victoria tomorrow night to stand by on call. I hope that you all have a great "Sylvester" celebration on the 31st, as we call it "New Year's Eve" here. I plan on enjoying myself that night out on the coast if we are not at sea... haha.
My father warned me about how much I should write, but I have never been one to say anything too quickly. I hope to keep in touch in the near future and I promise that there will be more questions. If you have any for me or the rest of the family just ask. I have been working on a family tree of some sort in the last few years and perhaps I can ask for your assistance over the next few months.
Szívélyes üdvözlettel,
James
(I hope I translated that correctly... if not, I will work on it a bit)
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