Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

Last Friday I experienced the apex of cultural miscommunication. We had a study group meeting with Marjaana from Finland, Andre from Norway, Rachel from the US, and me. We meet once a week to go over the readings and both Andrea and Marjaana speak English like natives. Quite incredible actually. Well, almost. We discovered that somethings aren't taught in English classes. We were talking going to school that morning and Marjaana was complaining because I was so slow. I said, without hesitation, "If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm an anal brusher." All of a sudden Marjaana just kind of froze in awkwardness and neither her nor Andre said anything. Rachel and I kept on talking and didn't notice anything for about 10 seconds until we looked at their faces and saw the disgusting looks of confusion. Suddenly I realized what they thought I said! Everyone started laughing when we all felt the awkwardness together and to go along with the joke, I was quick to assure Marjaana that the brush we used to wash the dishes with had been in my anus. Well, we spent the next 5 minutes discussing anal retentive and it's more common form, anal. I think that Marjaana was still convinced that I actually did brush my anus even after the explaination. Needless to say, it reminded me of the difficulty of cross cultural communication and reminded me that maybe I should stop being an anal brusher!