The Norwegian Meeting (norskmøte) Part 3

• Part 1 is here.
• Part 2 is here.

"You just couldn't say 'Hei' like everyone else could you?" shouted Jan. "No, you had to ask how he was DOING, like a typical American."

"Yeah, sorry about that." I replied.

With Hans gone, we attempted to have the meeting without him, but there was no way to setup a project plan since the project manager was gone.

After my fiasco, people just grabbed their coffee and left. That implies the meeting was horrible. When meetings in Norway go well, they always end with some Jolly, very innocent Joke, the timing of which is almost exactly like a Shakespearean play.

... Meeting concludes, begin small talk, setup for joke, deliver some very politically correct joke, cue laughter, conclude meeting, EXIT STAGE LEFT ...

Not so on this day.

Afterward, I spoke to Jan, who told me just to go to the hotel. We can pick it up tomorrow.

"John don't be an American tomorrow, can you just act normally? for once in your life?" he asked.

"All right, all right! FINE!  I'll just talk about the weather and IKEA tomorrow." I replied.

I was dead tired. I had just come in from the US, and jet-lagged to high hell. I went to the hotel and just crashed around 6PM.

---

The next day, everyone met up again in the meeting room. Hans had also returned.

"Hei John." he said jovially.

"Hei Hans." I relied back. That's all I'm saying today. No more asking "how are you?" while I'm here.

As we sat down, the meeting started. It went very well, and at the end, people starting kidding around again. That's usually a good sign that the joke is coming. The topic started with the fine weather, then people started talking about working in the garden, another person talked about hiking in the mountains next weekend. Finally, Lars, one of the guys that picked me up at the airport delivered the closing "monologue".

"Jeg tenker om trening nå. Jeg skal IKKE trene, men jeg tenker om det" [I'm thinking of exercising now. I'm NOT GOING to exercise, but I'm thinking about it.]

Everyone laughs innocently. That's it. That's the end of the meeting.

I decide to add a bit to the overall festivities.. I mention to Lars that he won't need any exercise actually ... I got up at 1AM this morning and couldn't sleep anymore, so I went to Bislett Kebab for a snack. At the Kebab shop, while I was eating, I saw Lars hold hands and kissing his wife and I thought it was VERY ROMANTIC.

"Vent litt" [Wait a second] said Ronnie. "Lars, jeg trodde din kone er i Tyskland nå?" [Lars, I thought your wife is in Germany now?]

Lars turns red. The entire room goes silent immediately.

OH SH*T!!! JESUS CHRIST I DID NOT DO WHAT I THINK I JUST DID.

There was dead silence for the next 10 seconds... no one wants to say anything. So I try to break the ice the only way I know how.

"Um, fint vær i dag?" [nice weather today?]