I’m about to go to the country of baconnaise, the home of hamburgers, fries and Dr Pepper. The land where you get asked a question and are not expected to really truly fully answer.

Can’t wait to see how Miki, my travel mate, will react to this. Entering shops, placing orders in a restaurant, pretty much everywhere you get greeted by a phrase that might look like this:

“Hello (Sir), how are you doing today?”

When I first went to California, this warm and open greeting seemed kind of alienating to me. You get asked how you were doing today… In the most formal restaurant? That – to me – used to be material I talk to friends and people close to me about. Not waiters. Not staff. Until I realized that this is not supposed to be some intrusive question or anything of the kind. It’s just a way to greet someone and loosen up a bit.

You are not expected to give detailed updates to your waiter on your critical condition concerning your inflamed right pinkie toe. Just shoot back a nice “Fine thank you, and you?” and where ever you are – may it be in a café, restaurant, shop,… everywhere – the person that will be helping you for the day will appreciate it.

What Europeans get wrong very often: You are not expected to give orders to a waiter before you greet him/her accordingly. That would be considered entirely rude. “Hello, how are you?” – “Two scrambled eggs and bacon as an aside!”. You get used to that warmness very quickly and I sometimes miss this kind of dealing with people. Use phrases like “May I have another diet coke, please” instead of “My coke’s empty. REEEFILL!”… You get the idea.

What Europeans get wrong too often: Tipping accordingly.

Can’t wait to give you more updates on our upcoming trip. Just ordered the New York City guide by Lonely Planet since the Encounter version was just too superficial for a 10 days stay. Covering just the basics that I knew about already made it look like there wasn’t too much to do.

Excuse this lame anglo-french approach in the title. Here one more reason to get onto a plane and escape the fierce Austrian winter…

Feel free

“It never rains in Southern California” (Albert Hammond)

Winter here in good old Austria made me really desperate. Desperate enough to have me pick up the clichést of clichés. Look what I found on my hard drive looking for a cosy warm desktop wallpaper.

While Austria is still failing to ban smoking in closed public places (like restaurants, bars, etc.), California state law already restricts smokers. Probably for the first time, Austria came first in banning something that CA had allowed until July 1, 2008: Driving and Talking (on a cellphone) or Talking (on a cellphone) and Driving.

Safer Roads in CA? Hope dies at last. · initial photo by WSK 2005 on flickr

Have you ever driven down an US American highway or an inner-city street? What do you get to see there? Is your answer “People driving gas-guzzling old tuck-taped cars?” Wrong, I have todisappointyou. You see people doing everything behind (I see the relativity aspect, right there) the wheelbut drivinggas-guzzling old tuck-taped cars. It’s the American approach to Germanized productivity andefficiency. Number 1 activity when cruising the streets is, independent from time, location and profession, talking to someone on cellphone. Close second is skimming the newspaper accompanied by a drive-thru Starbucks Latte and a cream-cheese bagel. Don’t miss the attached video, hilarious!

Is there any truth in this rumor? YES.

Last summer my host family and I were in the family van headed north to go some place, probably San Francisco or San José. We passed an In-N-Out and each of us was starving (we probably skipped breakfast) and were ready to throw in some real American food, burger and fries. The younger brother Austin claimed to have gotten wind of a special menu hidden on the usual menu but every restaurant would serve if you used special key words when ordering. The hidden menu’s name: Animal Style. More on this, after the jump.

People sometimes approach me with the question why I particularly like the city of San Francisco. Well, if a city has the following quality, I’d rate it as special and thus totally worth living there: A city that beautiful in the early morning hours that it would make you get up and take a morning walk.Four picturespbo31 (flickr user)that proof the above stated thesis…

Orange Bay · photo by pbo31 on flickr.com

Uh, I just feel like HAMBURGER now… · So California – unsure shot

Where I’d be going if I could break out of the saving (old) people’s lives? Hm. Good question. Susi’s off to Australia. Darn it, how come she’s the one on a plane heading South? Can’t wait for the spring. Life’s busy. Short update. I know. I’ll be posting soon. Ish. Promise.

like bad news (what a Modest Mouse reference) like conspiracy and deception about oh so accidental natural deaths, Terry Hatcher (and not just because she was Superman’s first choice), (somewhat) black humor evoked by acts of hypocrisy and backstabbing cellulite moms everybody would like to fool around with, and suburban garage sales where middle age women want to get rid of, say the waffle iron that turned out to be useful when killing their husband who they caught cheating with the 16-year-old babysitter with braces.

Guess what, Desperate Housewives are back on TV in good old Austria. Isn’t that exciting. They will start on 11 February, 9:05 pm. Do NOT miss it, since it will clear up a lot of the masterpiece cliffhanger finale of season three. No way, I won’t give anything away of what’s happening in the fourth season of the TV series with my favorite middle-aged suburban women. Let’s just hope that the author’s strike in America (WGA- Writers’ Guild America) is over soon, so the holding out for new episodes of Desperate Housewives is not as long as the wait in front of the Finding Nemo Ride in Disneyland (I hear, it’s good, though).

Oh, how could I forget Grey’s Anatomy is back too. I just decided that this series contains to much drama, drama and – oh did I mention – drama! This ever running on-and-off thing that Mrs Drama and MacDramaDreamy are practicing can be watched on Mondays too, after Desperate Housewives: 9:55 pm.

Oh, what a lovely connection. Innocent Scottish sheep meets kinky weirdo Austrian meets perfidiously maliciously megalomanic American. See the brand new bubblesnaps (link to a list of bubblesnaps entries on PHB) from December 07 and January 08.