Across the Pond

Sometimes the small things intrigue us more than the big ones. Last week, as I was unpacking and organizing books which had been in storage while we were living in Austria I started wondering about book spines. Author and title are typically printed top to bottom on English books and bottom to top on German books. Personally, I find it easier to read titles that are written bottom up, the German way. It seems that my body doesn't need to twist as much to get a good perspective on the print when the books are on the shelf, but maybe that's just what I am used to. Preference aside, the question is: why the difference? A quick online search for the answer didn't bring up much. Wikipedia's entry for bookbinding has a paragraph on book spines. It confirms that "in the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, titles are usually written top-to-bottom, and this practice is reflected in an industry standard" whereas "in most of continental Europe, t...

"In reality you do not, as I had hoped, get any distance on Europe from here. You do not acquire a fresh angle on it. When you turn around, it has quite simply disappeared." I have been rereading Jean Baudrillard's America, the French philosopher's collection of travel notes on the US. Baudrillard wrote as a European, more specifically as a Frenchman. He can be arrogant and annoying but his fascination with America is palpable throughout the book and his observations often ring true for me. Yes, Europe becomes small when we get here. It happens when we come as visitors, because of the sheer immensity of the country, and it happens when we come as immigrants: Europe suddenly feels far away; it seems more distant than the US does from Vienna. The reason? I have not lived in any US city other than Los Angeles and can only speak for what happens here but  L.A. plunges us into the here and now - although not i...

By Lorraine Seal Lorraine Seal is a fellow expat blogger who moved from Los Angeles to Ireland and on to Salzburg, Austria. Her blog, A Spy in Another Country, is about "the European gestalt as experienced by an American woman married to an Irish man". Across the Pond asked Lorraine for a guest post on the things she misses about Southern California. Dear Christina, As I write this, it’s been three years to the day I departed Los Angeles for life in Europe. This morning, I think of you and your family in Southern California, beginning a new phase of your lives. You asked me what I miss, and I had to think a bit before I could answer. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve made a point of remaining focused on living where I am rather than looking back. Our intention is to stay in Europe, so I’ve tried to avoid comparisons or to consider what I miss. But since you ask, yes, there are sights and tastes and sensations that stand out vividly as I let m...

Sunny days, brilliant light, endless streams of traffic - after two years in Vienna we are back in L.A. We moved from the most livable city in the world to one of the most stressful cities in the US, gave up the security of life in Austria for the uncertainties of life in the USA. Are we crazy? According to a Forbes study which was published last week only Las Vegas beats Los Angeles for stress level in the USA. Forbes used six metrics "that can either cause or be caused by stress" to arrive at its conclusions: high unemployment, long commute times, long work hours, limited access to health care, poor physical health, and a lack of exercise. The main reason for Los Angeles to fare poorly is apparently the physical health of its residents. 22.8 percent of Angelinos report that their health is "less than good". Forbes comments that "physical and mental health are closely intertwined, and it's hard to keep from stressin...

What a treat: we got to spend a few days in Madrid, an elegant yet careless, old fashioned and easy going, proud but welcoming, southern place with French, Austrian, and Arabic influences. The people were friendly, and the pickpockets we had been warned of by tourists from Austria must have been on vacation. We met friends of relative F.'s, an international bunch of happy, energizing people in their thirties, talked politics and culture, ate simple food: Spanish omelet made with firm, waxy potatoes; goat cheese, Iberian ham, green olives, served with plain white bread, country fare, tapas. The yellow peaches were so rich in taste and so juicy that our preteen daughter exclaimed, "I have been waiting to eat this all my life. It is like in James and the Giant Peach." In three days of wandering we noticed more colorful shoes on feet and in shop windows than I have seen in decades; we studied architectu...

The other day we stumbled upon a patch of California right in the middle of Vienna: California poppies grow in the botanical gardens of Belvedere Palace. Spotting the deep yellow flowers on their thin, bent stalks, I was reminded of how these plants cover vast expanses of desert in California in the spring. The California poppy, scientifically known as Eschscholzia californica, is the official flower of the state of California. It blooms from February to May in the wild. The best place to see it in L.A. is the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in the Mojave Desert. Images: California Poppies in Vienna in August and in the California Poppy Reserve in April 2005

Today's Room for Debate in the New York Times asks, why Americans don't have longer vacations. Interesting topic. To read the debate and join it  click here. Austria has 13 national holidays. The minimum vacation time is five weeks. As a reporter in Vienna in the 1990s I got so much vacation time (plus the national holidays plus compensation days for working Sundays) that there was no way I could have spent it all. Unfortunately for my employer the unconsumed days and weeks carried on to the next year and further to the next. When I quit my job the paper had to pay me for all the free time not taken which added up to almost three months salary. I spent it all.