Finding Familiar in the Foreign

It’s been over a week since I wrote that I would “post something every three or four days”. So much for promises. I think I shall place the blame on jet lag. And this is why I balk at the suggestion my friends offer: to become a YouTube Travel Blogger. Hah! I would starve if I counted on earning any income from regular travel posts! But, I digress.

So, we’ve been here an entire week now. A week of socializing, coffee drinking, friend hosting, and church attending. All Familiar in the Foreign. The easiest to accomplish has been the socializing and friend hosting. That seems to work in the same manner in whatever country one finds oneself. Invite someone and serve food and drink. We served soup and salad for our first guest, Maria. And we served Quiche Lorraine and tossed salad for our second guest, Maria. She is a friend with whom we are comfortable, so comfortable, in fact, that she deigned to inform me that my coffee was like dishwater. There is a Norwegian word for such a sad category of coffee, weak and light enough to see the bottom of one’s cup. I now know the correct amount of ground coffee required for good coffee over here. Be forewarned.

And socializing comes easily, right? Popping in on my jeweler friend, Andrew, and visiting for half an hour before finally getting down to the business at hand! [this time, I rode the bus to his studio instead of traipsing around the island of Jeløy through the woods by bike like last time!] Our friends here, who, as we have stated often, are the main reason we return to Moss, Norway again and again. Even in this foreign country, we find ourselves in homes we have visited many times.

Ahh, returning to our beloved home church away from home. It was so good to greet these people again like Alice, the retired missionary to Brazil, who, along with her late husband, Per, served the people of Brazil for over 50 years. And there is Grethe, who has shared her rich voice and guitar playing with this body of believers for years. I cannot communicate as deeply as I would like with either of these saints due to my inability to speak enough Norwegian, but we share smiles and earnest greetings anyway.

The views from our windows and from across the canal of the beach, the ferries coming and going, the boats, and the dog-walkers, are peaceful and project a pace of life we admire.