My Fulbright scholarship study year 1953/54 at the university of California in Berkeley and resident International House has been one of the highlights in my life and it is still in my memory at the age of 86, still going strong.

From  impoverished war torn Europe after World War II  I experienced more than 60 years ago the change to democracy in a free society of America´s golden west in California at that time.

Along with my public health medicine studies I was immediately integrated in the American way of life through many friends. But the in-house living activities offered also opportunity to get acquainted with cultures from all over the world. Furthermore I had the chance to serve at the university faculty club in between semesters meeting there atomphysicists like Oppenheimer, Edward Teller among many other emigrated top European scientists.

Who else can tell to have witnessed so many remarkable events in one year of a lifetime.

Dr. Herbert Avanzini, MD is a graduate of the University of Innsbruck and studied public health at the University of California, Berkeley, as an Austrian Fulbright Student in 1953–54.