Serendipity

Yesterday I met a couple of online friends, Michele (of the very amusing and thoughtful http://michelesmistakes.blogspot.com/ ) and Liz, in Oslo. Originally, I started writing my blog just to keep in touch with friends and family in the U.S. I never thought that it would lead to conversations and eventual friendships with people I didn't know at all in "real life". Honestly, I think that the people I have met (this includes you too, Victoria!) and the friendships I have made because I decided to write about my random experiences in Norway have been the best, most unexpected, gifts that the past 15 months have provided. Sure, moose and fjords and skiing down snowy mountains are all delightful, but in the end, they are just icing on the cake! (The cake being the wonderful people I have met--you all followed that metaphor, right?)
Enough of that! No one reads my little blog for the sentimental schmaltz, so on with the rambling observations:
Michele and I had lunch at a fantastic Thai restaurant, "Tasty Thai." We were seated by a large window, and midway through our meal we noticed that an infant in a baby carriage had been left unattended outside of the restaurant. It was really cold out yesterday, but the baby was well bundled up, and occasionally we could see a tiny, mittened hand reach up through the blankets. After about 10 minutes, a man returned and pushed the baby carriage on down the street...I really hope that baby did indeed belong to that man! (I remember there was a huge fuss a few years ago after a Danish woman left her baby unattended outside of a Manhattan coffee shop. I guess in Scandinavian countries, this is completely normal parenting behavior, but to my paranoid American eyes, it seems like so many awful things could happen in such a short time...Oslo is a city of 450,000 people! I can't imagine growing up with that sort of ingrained trust in humanity...)
After lunch, Michele and I met up with Liz, and we all boarded a tram (trikk). I always get excited to try something new for the first time, but I think that my first trikk ride would have been a bit more enjoyable had it not been 3:30 on Friday afternoon. The 450,000 people who I just mentioned live in Oslo? Yeah, they were all on that trikk!
Finally, we stopped by a bakery to talk and have some coffee and I was put to shame. When it comes to math, science, history or foreign affairs, eh, I'm not so smart. But if you were, say, putting together a championship Trivial Pursuit team and needed someone to answer all those tricky pink pie entertainment questions, it would be hard to find someone more informed than me. I truly believed that about myself, and then I met Liz. She knew obscure facts and salacious tidbits about every celebrity referenced in our conversation. I was in turn awed and abashed!
Anyway, I had a great time and am still glowing with gratitude...this past year has at times felt so overwhelming and so lonely, but it is amazing what a latte, a little pad thai and some good conversation with friends can do!