Thank you, Dave, for the mother’s day wish. Nancy just gave me a card; I completely didn’t remember this was a special day.

Yesterday was a lucky day. We started out for a short walk, heading toward a tall church spire, which turned out to be a memorial monument to commemorate May 8, the WWII day when the Russians arrived to liberate this town. Bodø, Norway had been used by the invading Germans as a prison camp where 1,000 people had died. So this week end was a time to remember the Russians who freed Norway.

There was a museum across the street from the church that usually closed on Saturdays, but was open with a special exhibit of pictures of that liberation. We climbed the stairs to see a 25 min movie about the town of Bodo.

While Nancy stopped to take pictures of some displays, I looked for a place to sit in a room, which was filling up fast. I saved a chair for Nancy, but she never came. Turns out I had missed the movie about Bodø and had crashed a Russian-Norwegian Society meeting! When Nancy finally found me, I had watched a long movie-lecture in Russian about the liberation of Bodø. They were serving food, so we ate. Finally a nice lady came over to say her friends wondered why the Americans came to the party. She volunteered to find out! Then there was accordian and guitar music for a sing-along–Russian folk tunes. Very beautiful. We stayed for that too, of course. Everybody was very cordial, and we had a very lucky day.

Love from Bodø, Arlene

PS Bodø is pronounced Booduh
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