The Night of a Thousand Rains

I am at a point in my life where should I know I suck horribly at following directions. I always listen to some vague description about an area I don't actually know and say to myself, "Meh, I'll find it".

I get invited to a housewarming party. Yay I think, I like people and parties, this will be fun. I take a peak at a map of the area and receive some directions from my gracious hostess. I ask what she needs and I am to bring Soda and Juice.

No problem, I know exactly where the bus stop near her place is, and she tells me it is only about 200 meters from the house. This will be easy. The first ominous sign is that upon stepping out my front door the sky opens up and it begins absolutely POURING. I trudge wetly through the streets and hit the store to pick up 3 liters of soda and 3 liters of juice. For some reason Coke in Norge comes in 1 1/2 liter bottles.

I hop on the bus and get off at the right stop. Alright, now Carola told me to backtrack about 50 meters from the bus stop and turn, then go up the hill. I backtrack about 50 meters, then turn to go down the street and... no hill. Wtf? Shit, why didn't I print the damn map, I must be some sort of idiot. Oh well, he hill must be close, I'll keep looking.

I start walking, and walking AND WALKING. Damn I think, now it is getting hot. But if I open my jacket I'll get soaked. Finally, sweating, I can't stand it and open the jacket. The whole time I just keep moving in concentric circles looking for the damn street.

Nothing. I am getting wetter and wetter and the 6 liters of liquid isn't getting lighter. I keep shifting it from hand to hand. I go back to the bus stop 5 or 6 times trying to figure out where I went wrong. I just can't figure it out. By now an hour has gone by and I am sopping wet.

Finally, it dawns on me... maybe she was thinking of the other bus stop. I cross the huge street and walk down to the bus stop for the line going in the other direction, contiue 50 meters past it, turn right to stare up the long hill she was talking about. Happy I finally fucking found a clue that I am going in the right direction I am haunted by the fact that now I am cold, wet, tired and miserable. I debate just giving up and going home to cry into my juice (well, not really the crying part).

I figure I must almost be there, just like another 150 meters away, right? Wrong. I am going to get Carola a meter stick for her birthday or something because she vastly underestimated how far from the bus stop is from her house is.

Without going into too much detail I spend what must have been almost another hour wandering around THIS neighborhood looking for the right street. I start walking up one final street thinking, "If that street at the end isn't Normangatta I am going home."

Luckily, I didn't have to go home. I found the street and then the warm dry house pretty quickly. And one thing especially made the entire ordeal worthwhile. Well, two things. Firstly there was sushi. LOTS of sushi. And because I was so late Everyone had basically already had their fill. I proceeded to devour salmon rolls like they were going out of style. Mmmmm, good stuff.

Secondly, there were a couple Germans at the party and all of the other Europeans were giving them so much shit for being German. I never heard so many Nazi, Hitler, Holocaust, WW2, gas chamber jabs in my entire life. It was insane. I felt bad for them, it wasn't quite fair. I felt especially bad as Carola is German and she was the one that invited me to the party. I decided it was not a good idea to join in on that part of the revelry. As an American I catch a bit of shit, but not nearly so much.

To cap off the evening I ate more Sushi and then caught the bus home. The End.

Are they slimy?

Ah the joys and perils of different languages. My cousin sent me a message on facebook in Norsk:

God kveld. Lenge siden sist! Det er lenge siden sist vi møttes! Det var lenge siden. Luftputefartøyet mitt er fullt av ål

Now, I actually had a VERY rough idea of what that is supposed to say, but just to be certain I wanted to run it through Google for a translation. I got back MOSTLY what I expected, but I think you'll be able to pick out the surprise. Here is the translation verbatim:

Good evening. Long time no see! It is a long time since we last met! It was long ago. My hovercraft is full of eels.