Some catching up to do

There are probably going to be more times in my life that I wish I hadn’t waited 25 years to do something. Yesterday was one of those times. My mom has been telling me for 6 months that I HAVE to call our former foreign exchange student Eirik when I’m in Europe. Sure it makes sense, but for whatever reason actually doing something that simple had eluded me. It did take until the last week of our travels to finally get the logistics worked out, but we did it. Wilma can scratch it off the list.

Eirik and his family travelled from Oslo to visit Gothenberg, the famed home of the Liseberg amusement park, and summer vacation home of the Carroll family. WE met at the park to give the kids a distraction while we talked of Orion, families, home exchange and about 8 hours of other stuff. Eirik is exactly how I remember him, funny, good to talk to, nice guy, and he now has the added bonus of a wonderful family. Here they are at the park yesterday.

Here is where I come up short on the needed details. Eirik works for a large newspaper in Norway doing what we decided is chief editor type work for their on-line edition. Who goes where?, who writes what?, Where things go in the paper? Pretty impressive stuff. I know everyone’s name, but I’m going to wait until I see it written down before I screw it up on the blog. I will say that Sara was very happy to try her Norwegian skills again with Phillipa, Eirik’s 6 year old daughter.

I could go on for another few pages about our visit yesterday, but we are having them over again today before they return to Oslo and I’ll save it for later. I will close by saying that we both decided that 25 years was a silly time frame to not re-connect and that we will do better now. Here are a few more pictures. I realized after adding them that I have some good shots, but they are kind of haphazard pairings. I’ll do better today.

 

25 years

Too funny. In a long shot I asked my friend Bill Kalman to see if he A) Had our high school yearbooks still, and B) if he could find and scan me a picture that I knew was in one of them. Bill is good. He came through. I’ll add him to the list of people I owe a beer.

Here is a shot of Me, Eirik, Muhleman kid who I don’t remember his first name or how to spell his last, and Bill himself. I asked him to send it to me so I could show it to Eirik when we meet next week. Too funny. I’ll post a follow up shot of the two of us. I know I look the same.

We are stirring

So the next couple of weeks have a couple of twists coming up. This weekend we are traveling to the south of Gothenburg to spend the day with the father of our exchange people, Roland. He has promised a day of nature, culture, and BBQ. I’m interested to see what a Swedish BBQ consists of. If they break out some big old salted fish, I’ve leaving. He has some other visitors, so we will be able to get a true Swedish experience. The week after that I’m hoping to catch up with another blast from the past. 25 years ago the Carroll family had an exchange student from Norway stay with us for a year. I called him, after some serious nudging from my mom, and we talked for about half an hour. We tentatively made plans to get together a few days before we head back to the states. This would be a great way to cap off our trip. I know my mom is interested in seeing us get together, and after talking to him I am too. Stay tuned.