Today I’m opening the
door to more illustrations of my inspiring stories. This time you get to see
images from my illustrated book BON VOYAGE. This is the follow-up story of
Angel of Hope & Lily, featuring Monsieur Jac Couture.
Bon Voyage is also available as audiobook narrated in British English by the lovely narrator Beverley Murray. The story is magical. It inspires. It educates. It pays homage to the beauty of Europe by taking you to its breathtaking cities where you will explore geography, culture, and history.
For
fifteen years my mum and I, as war refugees, couldn’t travel and leave
Switzerland. We felt like prisoner’s in a golden cage, sentenced for life, and
only because we had left our war-torn country for a future in safety. But
traveling is very important. People who never travel miss out on so much
experience and knowledge.
I remember the days when all my schoolmates came back from their summer or
Christmas holidays and told me all about their magical destinations. I admit I
really envied them. For fifteen years I collected travel brochures with amazing
destinations and stored them under my bed knowing that I could never ever visit
these places because of our papers. I remember an occasion where I even won a
trip for two to Paris and Disneyland. It was always my dream to visit this
gorgeous city with my mum. And I had never ever won anything before or after
that. Well, as you can imagine it was extremely heartbreaking for a
fourteen-year-old girl to pass the prize to someone else.
It took fifteen years until my mum and I were finally allowed to leave
Switzerland and that was like a miracle for us. Visiting all these cities that
I wanted to see for so many years could finally become a reality. My dream
country had always been the USA, probably because of all the TV series that I
watched as a teenager. So, the first countries we visited were Canada, America,
and United Kingdom. We visited Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas,
New York, and London. Five years later we finally had the chance to discover
the beauty of the European countries as well.
Switzerland is located right in the middle of Europe, but despite having
historical and amazing countries such as Germany, Austria, Italy, and France
within an hour drive or flight, we hadn’t had the chance to discover these
wonderful countries for almost twenty years.
All these countries didn’t give us a touristic visa until Switzerland became
one of the Schengen members in 2008. In 2007 though, only a month before this
happened, we had the chance to visit Italy thanks to the kind embassy of Italy,
who gave us Visas and welcomed us. The feeling of freedom was indescribable. A
long dream and desire finally came true. And that was just the beginning of
many more travels to come that we have shared in Bon Voyage with our readers
and listeners.
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