On the way to Marseilles with the ship Lamartine

End of summer 1937. I took off from Istanbul to Marseille on the “Lamartine” boat to start my architecture education in France. I had bought a cap when we disembarked in Greece. In the photograph, you can see me on the deck of the ship with this cap on. I left for Paris after graduating from the Engineering Faculty. The two friends that are with me were younger than me. The one in the middle was the son of a professor, he also became a doctor. The slender guy behind me had graduated from Galatasaray highschool, he was going to France to further his education. His mother had asked me to look after his son. After Greece, the ship went through rough seas, the waves took the ladder used for descending from the ship, the funnel of the ship was broken, such a storm.. We three slept in the same room. At one time I woke up, he is not there, I saw the boat is going one way one minute and the other way the next. I went out at midnight, maybe toward dawn, to look for him. I saw someone continually throwing up to the sea at the edge of the boat. I went and said, what are you doing, you are going to fall to the sea. And he says, “let me fall and be done with this”.. I wanted to study architecture. We decided that I should go to France to be with my older sister Bella who was a physician. I took off for Paris via Marseille at the end of the summer in 1937 on the ship Lamartine.