Oranje Boven !

As we went through our usual 'and how was your day day' routine at the dinner table this evening, I was almost- but not quite- sorry that I missed seeing the school today. But- on the other hand- I am enjoying not having to walk back and forth to that fool school a half dozen times a day, taking our precious Meg to her classroom.

A small town

We went hiking on the weekend in the mountains of the Austrian province of Carinthia, my family and my wife's parents. My father-in-law is from there, from a small village up the mountain, which would not be of further interest to anyone except that there used to be a mine there, iron ore, that dates back to "Roman times" and maybe even the Celts.

This is way up in the hills. The roads are, once you get off the main drag, bad to the extent that they are often single-lane roads, some by design and some because the other lane has slid down into the valley. Guardrails are rare. I can only imagine what it's like to drive there in the winter.

I Fall Down... No Problem

I was talking to a friend about the attitude towards alcohol in the Czech Republic, and I realized that it’s another one of those subjects where I’ve so completely assimilated the Czech version of reality that the American version now seems crazy to me.

The Czechs are mostly a beer-drinking people, and it’s not uncommon to see a grandmotherly type putting back a few pints with lunch. A lot of people have lofty political ideas about the "Velvet Divorce” (the Czech/Slovak split), but I know the truth: the Czechs wanted the split because once the liquor-drinking Slovaks were off behind their own little border, the Czechs were finally and easily able to edge out their German neighbors and become the highest per capita beer consuming nation in the world. Yay, Czechs! And yay to the grandmas, for doing their part to keep the country on top.

Classified information

At lunch yesterday with a visiting fellow American, we somehow stumbled on the topic of class divisions. Or rather class identification.

I mentioned that another friend of mine, who just moved back to Sweden after living eight years in London, was dismayed because his English girlfriend was ashamed of the fact that he worked as a hairdresser.

I said that it would probably be the same in the States.

"Yeah, I guess," my American friend said.

Foreigners

Last night, I received a letter from a friend of mine. She and I live remarkably similar lives, only reversed : she is an American, living in the States, married to a Dutch fellow. They speak Dutch in their home, so that their two children will be able to communicate with the Dutch part of the family. We speak English in ours, so that our children can chat with my family.

clap clap clap...collapse

Everybody put your hands in the air, like you really really care! Now... keep them there!

I went to a ballet last week, and I’m still thinking about it. In particular, I’m thinking about how much we clapped. We clapped until our hands were absolutely numb, and then we stood up and we clapped some more. And although fifteen minutes of solid clapping seemed a pittance considering that the performers had been dancing non-stop for ninety minutes, it also seemed like an awful lot of human percussion.

Neither here nor there

If you want to know how it feels to be Lost In Transit, may I recommend a Working Holiday visa. Over 40,000 people come wandering over from the colonies each year, all leaving behind friends and jobs and families to spend two years in the UK.

The honeymoon period is delicious. Everything you see and do is new and exciting, sometimes scary. Every day is stuffed with opportunity and adventure. With no real committments, responsiblities or money, life is pared down to the essentials - work, drink, shag, travel.

To pack or not to pack, that is the question

Supermarkets. Love them or hate them, they can reveal so much about the culture within which you reside.

Announcing Foreign Substance

Allegedly we've inspired someone, people:

Foreign Substance is a new site that aims to 'capture the pulse of planet'. Lost in Transit was one of the inspirations for our site, where bloggers from around the world post dispatches about what's going on in their neck of the planet. Check out the site, let us know what you think about, and feel free to sign up as a correspondent and (cross-) post stories.

How to Survive an Interview

As a foreigner living in a country with very few foreigners, namely Siberia Sevastopol Slovenia, there's always a good chance I will be called upon by a journalist to give an opinion about the country "through foreign eyes." It's basically just me and some Mormons here, and since the Mormons only want to talk Christ, it pretty much leaves only me. These interviews are always a delicate situation, requiring a Metternichian sense of diplomacy and tact. I don't have this at all but, nevertheless, here are some of the things I have learned: