(We're in their kitchen.)
But before we went into the kitchen, we stopped at the door to take off our coats and our shoes.
Please see name of blog above. That is why. Socks are important here. Shoes go off practically the moment you enter a house. So good looking socks and clean smelling toes are of paramount importance. Especially if you are popular, I suppose. Which I also suppose would only be the case if the socks and toes were in order...
Our friends, Erin and Kyrre, are new to their home in a neighborhood just up the hill from our house. Because most of the boxes were unpacked, it was time to have everyone over. Erin is American, by way of Brussels, and Kyrre is Norwegian, so the inflyttningsfest guest list was an international mix.
(That's Erin on the right. If you'd been around, I'll bet she would have invited you, too. She's friendly like that.)
If you can bear the 8 seconds of this, listen closely and not only will you hear English by way of me thinking I was taking a photo, you'll also hear Spanish and Norwegian as well.
This is the photo I was trying to take...
Packed into the living room, kitchen and most of the house were, among, others:
1) Kyrre's Norwegian colleague from Stavanger University who bikes to work everyday, even in the rain. When she had to take her children to nursery school, they rode in a cart attached to her bike. Thankfully it was mainly downhill. Now they walk. The children, I mean. She still bikes. Every day. Even in the rain.
2) A consultant from Maryland who works at NATO (whose offices are housed in the middle of a giant hill. He doesn't get to work in the middle of the hill. He has to work in a rickety temporary offices outside. Which I guess is okay because he's a temporary worker.)
3) Hilarious Norwegian friends of friends who attempted to explain some fact of Norwegian culture to me.
It was completely mixed and was not quite English and not quite Norwegian.
I am not sure I understood it. At least not completely.
4) A group of Spanish and Mexican couples who moved to Stavanger because their husbands work for the oil companies. One husband looked a lot like Alfred Molina, the actor. (But not as the scary Dr. Ock, more as the kindly Dr. Ock. But still tall and friendly.) The Spanish woman made a tortilla, which is kind of cake made of onion, egg and potato. Another one is slightly sassy. (Scroll up to group photo. Sassy is in blue shirt. She's the one you want to stand next to at parties and hope you're lucky enough to hear one of her slightly wicked comments. And that's a compliment.)
And that's just who I talked to in the first hour or so.
Loads of fun.
I can't wait for ours.
Small aside....
Right now, Husband is in the living room, pretending to work, but really watching a Discovery Channel show on poots. Apparently poots fueled by brussel sprouts will ruin a dinner party because they will (now please read the following out loud in a posh English accent) "thwack you in the face, if you know what I mean."
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