Success!

It has been just two days since our first guests from America have left for home, and I now have time to sit and write. Of course, that may be due to an injury I sustained to my left foot last night which is keeping me basically housebound and, for the most part, off my feet for awhile, but I digress.

We hosted our friends from North Dakota, Bonnie and George, for ten days. This was their first time visiting Norway, the Land of Bonnie’s forefathers, and she had a strong desire to find the farm, “Tangsrød Gård”, which her grandfather left to come to America in 1902. As it happens, we are staying just across the fjord from that very farm as well as the centuries-old church in which he was baptized in 1882. Crazy, right? So, among all of our other planned activities to introduce them to Norwegian Life, we wanted to find that farm. Without an exact address or location. In fact, with the exact wrong directional location of where it actually was.

After spending a good part of a day walking around the Borre Kirke (her great-grandfather’s church) and the graveyard and the nearby community, we came up short. An email Bonnie sent to a local librarian (suggested by a museum employee) did not get a response. One night, during a frequent time of sleeplessness for me, I scoured maps of the proposed area and found a possible tie to the farm. I emailed the contact of this tie (“Karl”) and told him the story. He replied the next day with an enthusiastic response that he would share our information with his friends and contacts in the hope that one would know. I also joined a few local Facebook groups from towns in the area putting out our request for information.

Amazingly, in just a few days, Karl replied with the name of a friend, Morten, who knew of the location of Tangsrød Gård! Not only that, but he was willing to take us there! We set up a time for the next day, Sunday afternoon, and there we all were, at 5 pm the next day, waiting for a kind stranger at the Horten ferry landing.

What an absolute delight it was to meet Morten, who, quite frankly, was the only person in the entire country of Norway who had the knowledge AND access to the location of Tangsrød Gård. He owns the place! And, with the property presently under construction for a new train line, it was off-limits to the public…except to someone with a remote-controlled gate opener…like the property owner, Morten!

He drove us to the exact location of the farm, showed us where the farmhouse and outbuildings used to be and regaled us with stories and the history of the area. Bonnie was thrilled with this connection to her forefathers.

It was time to go, but, as if he hadn’t done enough, Morten invited us to his farm and home for coffee and kringler. This day just kept getting better and better! After a tour of his farm, we all gathered around the kitchen table, along with his sweet wife, and visited more.

Finally it came time to return to the ferry to take us back to Moss. I just have to shake my head at the way this all panned out, the kindness of strangers, and the amazing connections. It’s really a God-thing.

“A Little Bit of Cheese, a Little Bit of Ham…”

Wow. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? In the right hands, though, it could become a veritable feast. And, along with that feast, an opportunity of sweet communing with friends can occur. This is something, perhaps, many of us can learn. We do not need to serve a ton of or very expensive foods in order to show hospitality. Maybe what we need to do is be open to the idea of putting out the invitation to someone to come over to our home for tea or coffee and a “little bit of cheese” or a bite of something.

Today, after church, while we were all visiting over coffee and cake (which had been brought by a dear lady), Paul and I received a spontaneous invitation to our friends’ home “for a little cheese and a little ham, maybe”. Very spontaneous and sincere and with no agenda except to have time for more visiting. We gladly agreed and before long, Paul and I and three others were on our way to the home of Asbjørn and Astrid.

The ladies began setting the table with the serving pieces while Astrid prepared, heated up, and set out a sampling of small bites. Paul said it reminded him of tapas, Norwegian Tapas, if you will! Now, I do not know if Astrid knew all she had waiting in her larder for just this opportunity or whether every Norwegian woman worth her salt always stores enough food to serve drop-bys, but I took mental notes! There were butter horns, three types of cheese, currant jam, prosciutto, grape tomatoes, dates, and a delicious quickly prepared appetizer of sliced zucchini topped with cream cheese and Russian caviar. Seriously. I couldn’t even tell you where to buy caviar. But, I think from now on, I will keep a tin in my cupboard for just such an occasion!

Hot tea and cold drinks were served with our ‘meal’, and then coffee was served with the cake (which had been saved in the freezer for ‘a rainy day’!) and ice cream.

All seven of us were satisfied and talked for a couple of hours. What a delightful afternoon was spent with only “a little bit of cheese and a little bit of ham”.