We are being fed well and the fish in Sweden is wonderful! We are also quite partial to the potatoes - mashed, boiled, pureed, scalloped...every meal. The wine is flowing and the conversations are rich. We have had "official" dinners every evening with lovely presentations and many toasts.
It is amazing at an event like this to see and feel the rich texture of language, color, dress (some coveted and some not!). What a privilege. We are spending the days with our headsets dialed to English unless we want to take a brief vacation and listen to French for awhile. The setting for the meeting is a large, theater-type auditorium with plush, comfortable seating, wonderful technology, etc.
On Wednesday we had opportunity to worship in the 1000 year old Lund Cathedral - quite moving, although we found the Swedish music to be on the dark side... as in "Lentish"? We will return there on Sunday afternoon for the major celebrations of the 60th anniversary.
The location of the hotel in the outskirts of this small city does not allow for much wandering about - although the time for wandering about would be limited to before 6:00 a.m. and after 10:00 p.m. There is a lovely bar that serves fine California wine! Who knew those Swedes were so smart? Our exploring time will begin on Monday with our rental car.
Best conversations: Hedwig a bright,young woman pastor from Austria who is 50% highschool religion teacher and 50% pastor of a small suburban congregation; Esther Musah, a teacher from Liberia, who, after the long civil war is literally rebuilding a school - she just finished making 500 new mud bricks for the foundation of building #2; Doris Kitutu from Tanzania; and a businessman from Addis Ababa. A Swedish friend, Kristin Collander helped us get our train tickets for next Thursday from Stockholm to Copenhagen. It's the people that make this an incredible experience and also an exasperating one.
Last night we had a message on our phone that when we picked it up was totally in Swedish. We called the front desk and they just laughed and told us to delete it. Hope it wasn't terribly important!
Our Swedish is not improving - that may change when we leave this cocoon of Lutheranism and head out into the real world of Sweden and find we can't follow road signs, don't know what we are ordering for meals, etc.!
Time for coffee break - oh that means open-faced sandwiches, chocolate muffins, strong coffee and lots of sugar and cream! Tak!
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