Making friends through travel
This item appears on page 33 of the January 2018 issue.
Several years ago, while having lunch in Rome, my husband, Bucky Edgett, and I struck up a conversation with a Norwegian couple at the table next to us. They were from Aurskog, Norway. We exchanged contact information and kept in touch by email and Christmas cards.
In 2016, we booked a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, to see the solar eclipse in August 2017. Among the photos of participants, we saw that there was a couple from Aurskog.
Aurskog has a population of about 13,000, so I took a long shot and asked our friends if they knew this couple. Not only did they know them, they all were friends who lived within a few blocks of each other!
We met our “new” Norwegian friends the first night, and over five days we spent a lot of time with them, explaining what “Southern hospitality” means, finding out that their farm was the site of a decisive battle in Norwegian history, learning the Norwegian phrase “Takk for i dag,” which means “Thank you for today” (used when friends part) and doing our best to demonstrate American goodwill.
Isn’t travel a marvelous thing?
DOLORES (LOIE) MAMINSKI
Westminster, MD