NORWAY.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Lorentzen family & Co.,

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your island home off the west coast of Bergen is phat. That means "good." All I want to do is go back there and spend another week of doing absolutely nothing but sleeping, eating, reading Berlin, fishing and speaking Spanish with little Odin. Not to mention that I am having withdrawal symptoms from having to quit my afternoon siesta habit, cold turkey.

And oh, how I miss those bugs. You can't call them "mosquitoes," really -- they're much too small for that. But I hesitate to use the word "flea," as well -- the herds of those insects were way too far away from the other animals to go under that heading. I prefer the phrase, "Bugs that make you want to jump off a cliff without a parachute." I lasted about two minutes reading in the grass below before I just couldn't take it anymore. And that last night I was there, when we had to unscrew the engine from the boat ... at times I thought I was reliving the Exodus plague sequence. I've heard of people inhaling bugs through their nose, or even yawning and allowing entry through the mouth, but I have never, ever heard of someone blinking and getting one caught in their eye! There's a first time for everything, I guess.


But all jokes aside, you really made me feel at home. It wasn't just your hospitality, or all the fresh meals, or the free ferry rides, or the new toothbrush James bought for me when we got stuck in town without our bags that first night.

It was your Suburban, too -- the "Houston-mobile," as you called it. It makes my heart warm to know that a part of my culture has stayed with you for all those years since you left H-Town.


All is well here in Switzerland. Your friends, the Knapps, say hello. And FYI, the water is actually colder in Lake Geneva than the "warm" 17 degrees Celsius stuff you had during that beautiful week in Bergen (I can't remember the name of your island....which actually means that I never knew the name of your island).


P.S. Did you know Oslo is Spanish for "Do it" or "Make it"?