Miss Euro Blogger - Bursting the Bubble

Austria feels a sense of pride when it comes to being what they call nostalgic about the past and going against the mainstream. The rest of the world calls it being backward. In 2015, the Austrian government at the time passed a law that would finally take Austria to the same progressive level as the majority of Western countries: banning smoking in bars, restaurants and clubs. However, it wouldn't be Austria if things were that simple. The government gave establishments over 2 years to prepare for the law to come into effect - May 2018 - which would fall under the legislative period of the next government. I was very happy about the law as I am one of those 'annoying' people who get a headache and burning eyes as well as the urge to cough as soon as I am exposed to smoke. At the same time, I thought the long time before the law actually will be enacted may be problematic as the new government may have other ideas. It turned out that I was right... and in this case, I wis...

Sietar Austria invited me to hold a reading of my book LAlien-From the Austrian Alps to the Hollywood Hills at the Vienna Expat center on January 21. And so I did. Check out the Press Release by MyMorawa summarizing the fantatic evening: https://www.mymorawa.com/neuigkeiten/pressemitteilung-nachlese-zur-buchpraesentation-lalien-von-cornelia-e-miedler/

Today, I was really angry with myself. Even more so: I was disappointed with myself. I pride myself on being a strong woman who doesn't take shit from people - especially men when they think they can just do or say whatever to a woman. I went for a walk today in the woods surrounding the city of Salzburg in Austria. I had some lovely Apfelstrudel and a cappuccino with a view of the fortress Hohensalzburg up on the hill in the not so far distance. When I was done, I started to make my way back towards the direction of my hotel. Lots of tourists crossed my path, which is nothing unusual in this area at this time of the year. After a few minutes, I saw a young couple that just finished talking to an old man and saying their goodbyes. It seemed as if he was giving them directions. I was in a happy mood and being polite, I smiled at the old man as I passed him. He called after me: "Young lady!" I turned around and he came closer. "I was just telling these two young ...

I recently read an article about someone who 'repatriated' after six months of traveling. The writer talked about how difficult it was to reconnect with friends after she (or he - not sure) had been gone for so long. First, I think that if you lose your friends after you have been gone only for six month, they may not have been real friends anyway. So... good ridance. Second, try reconnecting with friends from school after you have been gone for over a decade! When I made it known on social media that I was about to move back to my home country, I had a lot of people from school reconnect with me and wanting to meet up as soon as I got there. I was excited that so many of them were interested in what I had been up to. The first friend I met up with is someone I went to kindergarden and school with. We had brunch and talked about the old days and the new days. Over the course of eating some scrambled eggs and drinking a cappuccino, it became pretty clear that this frie...

  via GIPHY A magical thing happens every year in Austria right around this time: people remember how to smile! When I lived in California, I was really confused why everyone was so damn happy all the time. I arrived in LA in the middle of September and my mood had already gone into hybernation ready for winter. But there is no real winter in LA. My body was confused - and my mood even more so. And then I got it: sunshine makes people happy! Eureka! Who knew?! Now as spring has sprung in Austria, I can see the same phenomnon. Yesterday, I ran into a neighbor. She smiled at me! And even greeted me! I was confused but immediately showed appreciation by smiling and greeting back. Of course, the springtime-miracle mood-lift doesn't work on everyone - my downstairs neighbor would rather bodycheck anyone in her way than crack a smile. Gee lady-no-smiles, give it a try, it doesn't hurt.  Nevermind the sourpuss face from downstairs, I love this time of the year! I know this sm...

I love cheese! Pretty much all types of cheese - aged, young, ripe, flavored, soft, hard, French, Spanish, Austrian, from the cow, from the sheep and from the goat - and sometimes even from the buffalo. There are few culinary things that satisfy my tastebuds more than delicious cheese with crunchy bread and paired with a good glass of wine. There is no doubt that Europe does cheese very well and you can also find delicious cheese plates here in Vienna. Selfless as I am, I sacrificed my waistline once again (after my two part series of coffee and cake tasting in The Ring-Part 1 and The Ring-Part 2 ) to find the best cheese plates in town for YOU! WeinRaum Across the street from the Theater in der Josefstadt in the 8th district is a tiny little wine bar called WeinRaum. It seems to be a family-run place with only two people working there. The wine selection is not huge but big enough to taste several whites and reds during the course of an evening. They have a lot of meat dishes t...

No, not the one you wear on your finger but the one that circles around the inner city of Vienna! The wide boulevard-like street is just over five kilometers long and celebrated its 150th birthday in 2015. Along the Ring - or Ringstrasse as it is called in German - you find some of the grandest buildings in Vienna including the parliament, the famous city hall, the University of Vienna, the Burgtheater, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Natural History Museum, and most impressively of all the State Opera that Tom Cruise descended off of in one of the Mission Impossible movies. Sprinkled in between these monuments are some of the grandest hotels of the city. Men in top hats open the door for guests. Royalty and pop stars take up residence in one of the hotels along the boulevard when they come to Vienna. As a local, I would of course never stay at any of these hotels, however, I am fascinated by them and there is one way to soak up their atmosphere: the hotel cafes! It is a common...

New Year's Eve is once again upon us. My expectations on how to spend that evening have changed tremendously over the decades. As a child When I was little, the most exciting part about New Year's Eve - and also the only expectation I had about that evening - was being allowed to stay up late. A staple in my childhood for that night was to watch 'Dinner for One'. Other than that it was all about watching TV, trying to stay awake until midnight and if I made it, shoot off some cheap fireworks in the backyard. As a teenager Growing up in the Austrian Alps, going out to a club wasn't really a thing. What the kids in the countryside did was meet at a hut in the mountains where we were surrounded by snow. Someone's uncle always had a hut and we would meet there in the early evening to get started on the bags of alcohol we dragged up there. One by one, we passed out somewhere on the floor or if you were lucky on a chair. It was a simple time. In my early...

So... I got married this year... twice... to the same guy - of course. As you know from my previous blog posts, I have been married before and was a happily divorced woman. In the years following, I didn't think I ever wanted to get married again. I had the 'been-there-done-that-meh-not-that great' kind of attitude. And why do something again that wasn't all that the first time around. Nonetheless, what I didn't think was going to happen happened. I met a boy. Boy was cute. Boy treated me right (respectful, loving and caring). Girl moved in with boy. Fast forward two years - boy popped the question on a cliff by the pacific ocean in Malibu. Girl said yes! And then... the planning phase started. I absolutely hated my first wedding. I hated the dress, the venue, the officiant, the atmosphere and the bored faces of the guests. At the time, I only had a few months to put a wedding together in a city that I just moved to. I had no clue what I was doing. That's ...

Today marks the 15th anniversary of 9/11. Do you remember where you were when it happened? I was in Salzburg at an Irish pub. CNN was running on the TV. Both towers were still standing. I asked the guy behind the bar what happened and he told me about the planes that hit the World Trade Center. "Was it an accident?" "I don't think so..." I only came to confirm a reservation but stayed to watch and find out more. The longer I watched the more scared I got. Why? Because I had a plane ticket going to America for only 10 days after this fateful day that changed the world. Soon it became evident that I was moving to a country that is about to enter into a war. What did that mean? More terror attacks within the U.S.? Fighting on the streets? Bombings? I didn't know what to expect. When I arrived at LAX, the airport was filled with guys holding guns. Helicopters circled above the city nonstop. It seemed like a movie. CNN was on all day and all night long. Loo...

Nice is a lovely, touristy beach town in Southern France. Graz is Austria's second largest city and very quaint. Santa Monica is the representation of the California lifestyle. I've lived in two of those places and visted one several times as a tourist. And all three have one thing in common: they all were locations where vehicles were used as weapons. The incident in Santa Monica was the one that made me realize that this can happen anywhere. This is how I experienced it:   I heard the fluttering for the first time while sitting in front of my computer to do some research for a paper for college. It was around lunchtime on a regular sunny summer Wednesday in Santa Monica. The noise grew louder and louder by the second. I looked out the window in my home office but didn’t see anything. I walked into the living room where the windows were facing the city center. There, I saw the source of the fluttering noise. A cluster of several helicopters was hovering o...

I recently tried to explain homesickness to my fiancé who has never lived abroad. It was surprisingly difficult! The knot in the stomach. The uncontrollable crying. The loneliness you feel despite being in a room full of people. Even if you are at the most beautiful place on Earth and next to a loving and caring person. He had no idea what I was talking about. How do you explain to someone when you suddenly feel gloomy because you just found a restaurant that serves the food from home and it tasted nothing like at home? My first overwhelming experience with homesickness came unexpected at a small grocery store that specialized in 'exotic' foods from outside America. There, I spotted a dry-soup package with German writing on it and burst into tears. It was as if I had no control over my muscles. I was unable to stop the crying. I was short of breath and felt this pain in my stomach as if an alien had taken over my body and was trying to kill me from the inside. I...

I have two hours to kill before my flight to Europe. So I thought I could write a vacation anticipation blog entry.  It's my first visit home in almost two years. Usually when I go home, hardly anything has changed. Which is what I like about it. Although sometimes changes creep in that seem small to people who live there but are huge changes for me. Starbucks started to pop up all over the place in Europe a few years back - followed by CPK, Subway and the like. The Europeans embrace it like they did McDonald's and Burger King. I did not. It's not that I'm against those institutions but when I go back home, I want to see home. Not something I see in America every day. I want the original pizza, the authentic dumpling and the desserts that are specific to each region. I understand that in a globalized world, cross-national changes are inevitable. I just hope that each European city and region can remain true to their roots... So, we'll see what this trip has in store...