Miss Euro Blogger - Bursting the Bubble

Image by photobucket Did you also wake up with a massive hangover this morning? Not just because you jugged numerous glasses of wine to either celebrate or cry over the election results but also because this has been a long and agonizing road. Personally, I am absolutely gutted about the election outcome - as an American, as an immigrant and most of all as a woman. If this election tells us one thing, it is that misogyny is more acceptable to the public at large than being a woman. Men who voted for Trump told their mothers, sisters and daughters that they are below a racists, homophobes and sexual predators. Women who voted for Trump diminished the value of their own existence. They basically said 'yes, I am worth less than a hateful man.' Even if you believe that Trump is a good business man, which I don't think he is (why not show your tax returns if you have nothing to hide? AND he has a c ourt date coming about accusations of fraud concerning Trump universit...

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...

As I get closer to the point of giving my 'go' to publish my book, I feel the fear getting more intense every day. Some excitement too of course but the fear is big. What am I so afraid of? The fears of publishing a book - and not just a book but a memoir! - are manyfold. I am afraid people will not like my book, which could be a rejection of my writing skills or they are telling me that my life is not nearly as interesting as I thought it was. I also suspect that there are some 'friends' out there who may want to see me crash and burn and feel validated in their superiority by my 'failure'. I am afraid people will not buy my book as making money from doing what you love to do is also a form of recognition. It's important that I like my book first - and I do - and validation from the outside should only be secondary. But let's be real, we like being validated by others. I am afraid people will give me poor reviews online. Reviews are permanent an...

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...

The horrible terror attacks in Paris last Friday took many of us back to that fateful September day in 2001. Most of us were not directly affected by the attacks (luckily) but it became obvious that the world changed that day... --> I moved to the U.S. on September 21st, 2001. Ten days after 9/11. It was an odd feeling to move to a country at war. Growing up in Austria and also living in Germany for a few years, I had a certain ‘idea’ of what war meant. Elderly neighbors and family members had been witnesses of World War II. I grew up in a house that had – as was required by law – a bunker you can go to in case of an air raid. Sure, my parents used it to stock potatoes and it had no door – but what was required was there. What did it mean when America was at war? Not much for the regular citizen who didn’t have a family member in the armed forces. Only when I turned on the news was I reminded of the war. The day I arrived at the Los Angeles airport, LAX, the day I arr...

--> One thing that I have always admired about the American spirit was the encouragement to dream and to try out things. There was no fear of failing. Failing is a part of learning and growing. You want to participate in a marathon or start your own business? The common answer in America will be “Good for you! That’s so cool!” Whereas in Europe the reaction to a dream often was “Why? Why would you burden yourself with that? That will never work anyway.” A dream was crushed at the very mention of it. So why this difference in how dreams are perceived? I can’t say for certain. I can only guess. In Europe, people are very concerned with the fear of failure. Once you fail, no one is likely to believe in you anymore. No one wants to give you a job if you failed with your own business. So it’s better not to try anything rather than not making it because ‘what will people think!’ Dreaming is for people who are lazy and loners. America, on the other hand, is a fairly young...

--> 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...