To explain an Earthquake

Much of my Danish family have never experienced an earthquake, and keep asking how it feels. I have thought allot about how to explain it.

It starts likes you get a feeling of vertigo, a bit like sitting in a plane and it makes a small movement, which wasn't expected. A bit like you were sitting in an aeroplane and you didn't discover that it actually took of, and suddenly it made a funny movement. Still with me? then imagine that you are not sitting in an aeroplane but lying in bed or sitting at the dinner table in your living room and the same feeling happens.

The thing is that you don't really know what to do, because it comes with no warning, so I mostly managed just to stay where I am with a bit of a funny expression on my face, unless Sara tells me were to go or what to do.

Well actually the second large earthquake we experienced in Rome (I guess it was the second day or third) we were sitting at the dinner table, I ran out in the doorway in the kitchen, because that where Sara had told me it was safe to stand. Just when it finished Sara came out, look at me and said with a dry voice "Actually that's a pretty stupid place to stay, since they just rebuild the piece of wall above the door, go over there if you are scared"...

Now imagine that you just been on a boat for a long time, you get of and it seems that the earth is still moving. Now instead of the boat image your living room, and instead of a "long time" imagine 20 seconds. For me it takes a couple of hours before I stopped having problems with my balance.

Every rational thought in my brain tells me that nothing will happen, as everybody says, if the Colosseum could stand for 2000 years in Rome, it cant be too bad in Rome, but its still a most unsettling experience, also the second, third, fourth time it happens.