Miss Euro Blogger - Bursting the Bubble

--> To kick-off my new experiences in this strange land, something very distinct to California happened only a few days after I arrived at the end of September 2001. It happened on my first weekend in L.A. right around 8 AM. We were woken up by a moving bed and rattling windows. What seemed like several minutes of movement was probably only a few seconds long. It was my first earthquake! Welcome to California! My fiancé assured me that this was just a small one. Oh great, that’s comforting! What’s a big one like then? He told me that during the big Northridge earthquake in the 1990s he fell out of bed. That’s a big one! This just kept getting better. A million thoughts shot through my head. There is no bunker, so where should we go? Outside? I don’t think so since the electricity wires were hanging old-style in the alleyways. So we stayed inside – away from large bookcases and windows. For a second I also thought that the war was now not only in Afghanistan but had also b...

People back home - or even Americans living outside California - often ask me if I'm not scared living in area with such frequent seismic activity. I can honestly admit that I am terrified of earthquakes - especially because I work in downtown LA on the 31st floor of a skyscraper. The icing on the cake is that there is a fault line that runs right underneath downtown LA. In late July of 2008, just before lunch time, the leaves of my potted plant on my desk started to move suspiciously. Next thing I knew, the ground under my chair was shaking. I know it was only seconds but it felt like forever. I sit nowhere near a window but looked through my coworker's office outside and thought I could see the ground. He told me stand in the doorway. I was determined not to cry - not to show weakness - but there came the tears. Soon after, the shaking stopped. The elevators were out of order for quite some time. So were the landline phones. And even cell phone service was unrealiable. Peop...