Manners

BBQ dinner my first night in Oppegaard: poelse (hot dogs) and lompe (potato tortillas). Some spicy mustard, red wine, along with a perfect Norwegian evening and lovely new family = Perfection.

Takk to the Lunds: Christian, Wenche, and Teodor!

(By the way, does anyone know where I can find potato tortillas in Chicago? Please tell me I don't need to bring them back in my suitcase. Trust me, there's no room.)

The very first thing I learned to say in Norwegian was takk. I say thank you a countless number of times a day, and takk always feels too short. Too flippant.

When the Lillestrom Rotary Club took us into Oslo for May 17? Thanks.
When the District Governor and his wife guided us on an amazing trip across Norway and into the mountains surrounding Bergen? Oh, thanks, that was cool.

I've been looking for a new word or phrase to express my appreciation because takk isn't enough. I need more modifiers! I want the Norwegian equivalent of "Thank you so very very much." My host families have suggested tusen takk (translation: a thousand thanks) or even tusen tusen takk to mollify my need for overly-dramatic expression.

I guess that's better. Maybe tusen takk still feels inadequate because I'm thinking too literally, and "a thousand thanks" sounds slightly silly in English. Or maybe it's because the other girls and I will try to one-up each other with million takk (a million thanks) or milliard takk (a billion thanks).

Yeah, it's probably the latter.

One more thing. One of the first words I asked to learn was vaer saa snill (please), but I just noticed that I rarely hear Norwegians use it. I asked Christian about it, and he said that you can be polite in Norway without saying "please" all the time. In fact, when they travel to the United States, they need to remind themselves to say "please" more often.