The golden thread of connections continues. Eva Ulstrup painted a very compelling picture for us in describing what it looks like to connect with other people. She said each time you do, it creates a golden thread and pretty soon the world is encompassed in golden threads like a ball of magic yarn.
In a total act of randomness we ran into these three young ladies working out on the stairs Holmenkollen, the Olympic ski jump on the top of a mountain in Oslo. Such a lovely conversation was had with them, one of whom had been to San Francisco in 2015. We told them of our adventure and shared laughs and ultimately gave them our blog URL.
Not four hours later the mother of one of the gals emailed us. She said,”You met my daughter Sofia this afternoon at Holmenkollen. I read your blog and feel like I know you guys already. Would you be able to have tea or lunch with me in the next few days before you leave town?”
What ensued is almost indescribable. This lovely human being, Bente, inquired about our pallet preferences. Upon learning that we were mostly vegetarian she watched a television program featuring vegetarian dishes prepared by famous chefs. She chose a curry (14 different spices) based vegetarian stew along with carefully prepared rice. All of which required a massive shopping trip. In addition she picked a Spanish white wine that would complement the dish. To begin the meal she had prepared an incredible Caprese salad ( we think because we had mentioned it in one of our posts.) Then she and her daughter drove about 30 minutes from the outskirts of Oslo to come collect us and drive us back to her house. And a lovely home it was. As it turns out the house is rather meat based and she had never prepared specifically a vegetarian meal. 
It was incredible, and only surpassed in flavor by the devotion and thoughtfulness and love which she had stirred into every bite. Then we feasted on a desert of berries and hazelnuts over the top of rich locally made vanilla ice cream. 
We dined midday on china and crystal and laughed and talked about kids and school and Norway and their time in California and what it would be like to have them come visit us in San Francisco.
When the meal was over and we had chatted for a while longer, it was time to leave. One last gift was granted us by them making contact with a woman we had met at Glide the last Sunday in June. Ida lives in Oslo and invited us to meet her when we came through. Sofia and Bente made the phone call and we get to meet Ida tomorrow for breakfast!
They drove us back. We wanted to send them home with a scrumptious treat from the bakery which was a block away. We walked there and arrived just as it closed. Bummer. We owe the Lindbergs a loaf of beautiful bread…and a whole lot of golden threads.
under Uncategorized