The Day After

6 May 2013

I knew Confirmation was big here in Norway, but I didn’t realize just how big.  Daniel showed up at our house today during school hours so he could hang out with Kaleb.  Actually, he wanted to go to the mall with Kaleb.  I asked why he wasn’t in school and that’s when I found out each kid gets the Monday off following the weekend they had Confirmation.  It’s to give them time to spend their money!  How crazy is that?  So he was at the mall with all the other kids that were confirmed, spending some of his money.  He was proud of the fact he had enough to buy five McDonald’s cheeseburgers, a large fries and large coke.  He ate it all and was downright giddy.  He also bought a wallet to hold the rest of his money until he spends it.  Opening up a savings account wasn’t high on his priority list.  Too funny.

I spent the morning packing up my treasures that I want with me back in America.  Earlier, I was at the grocery store stepping over boxes of things they were stocking the shelves with, when it hit me that I could scrounge some of those handy little boxes to pack up all my precious belongings.  The pewter items are so easily damaged, I figured it was best to have them wrapped well for the travel.  And all the glass dishes and stoneware I want to bring home, also need extra packaging… so I spent a good part of the day wrapping up things like it was Christmas, hoping someone coming our way will be able to bring them along with them if we don’t have enough room in our luggage, which I’m sure we won’t.

In the middle of my packing, my friend Tina called (Daniel’s mom) and asked if I could help her set up for the “leftover party” tonight.  I was happy to do that, so she picked me up and we went out to the community hall where the confirmation dinner had been yesterday for Daniel.  We moved tables around, cleaned up a bit and got things looking fresh and pretty again for the second wave of guests to come eat all that food.  We sat down when we were done and she told me of the very stressful time she had leading up to the confirmation, as her oldest son was coming home from college in Trondheim when his car broke down about five hours away.  He didn’t have enough money to take a bus, get a hotel or fix the car.  It was one very stressful evening as Tina made phone call after phone call trying to figure out how to get him home.  Her husband even left right away to go pick him up, even though it meant he’d be driving through the night, but when they realized the ferry schedule wouldn’t get him home in time anyway, they gave up on that idea and he returned.

In the end, he got his car towed to the nearest city, Tina called the hotel there and explained their circumstances and got the hotel to cut their rate in half AND give them a bill to be paid AFTER they left because they had no money to pay when they signed in.  (He was with his girlfriend.)  They also had no money for the bus the next morning, but with enough phone calls she was actually able to talk to the guy that would be driving the bus at 5:30 am and she asked him if he’d let them get on the bus and she could pay on her end when they arrived.  He said they had to change busses, so that wouldn’t work, but he’d let them ride on his leg of the journey for free, and he’d arrange it with the other bus driver that she could pay for them once they got into Aalesund.  I’m just not sure all those scenarios would have happened in America.  But they got home in time for two of the three confirmations they had planned on attending over the weekend, Daniels’ being one of them, so all-in-all, it worked out.  Except now his car is sitting in a city five hours away and they still don’t know what to do about that.  At least he hitched a ride back to Trondheim with some cousins of ours that were going that way anyway.  Whew.  Poor Tina needed a hot bath after all that negotiation and it certainly wasn’t what she expected to be doing when she was getting the final things ready for the big day for Daniel.  But Norwegians are practical and determined people and they make things work.

So Kory and I ate a bit of dinner before we arrived at Daniel’s “reste selskap” since we knew there wouldn’t be any fat free vegan options.  It saved me from eating any dinner whatsoever so I could just concentrate on the cakes.  My oh my, were there cakes and all of them worthy of a second helping, but I had to just stick with one slice per or I wouldn’t have fit through the door on my way out.

We had a lovely evening visiting with those who were there and then we stayed on a bit longer to help with the total clean up of the place.  Tina was very thankful she had help.  Daniel also got a few more “envelopes” with money in them so he’s still smiling.  He said one kid in his class got over ten grand for his confirmation, but “he’s an only child,” he said, not sounding the least bit jealous.