Mealtimes

One of the most fun times here at the conference is meal times.

This morning, I had a high need for caffeine, so I went to the cafeteria early to fuel up.
I met Geir Hasnes there, talking to Rob. Geir is giving a talk later today about his work as a bibliographer of Chesterton. We started talking about Chesterton and life, and whether our kids were Chestertonians or not, and about strict uber-Lutheran northern Norweigans, and then Father Jaki sat down with us and we continued to talk, quickly moving to the subject of Kristin Lavransdatter. Geir is Norweigan and Father Jaki is Danish, so that was interesting. They both appeared to be experts on the subject of Kristin Lavransdatter (I didn't know, for example, that she was an avid Chestertonian.) Then Kyro sat down, and while the Dane and the Norsk were talking across the table, we talked. Kyro asked if I'd heard of the Runestone found in Alexandria, MN (he happens to live near there) and we discussed that (I had discovered about it a few years ago and became fascinated by it and had formed an opinion that it must be real) and then moved on to the Shroud of Turin.

I think there were several other conversations in there, as well. Geir told us a funny story about how he impressed the British Library by informing them of how many signed First Editions of Chesterton's they were missing (over 50 at the time he visited) to which they are apparently working on remedying, or have.

I just get to meals early every time so that we have time for these wonderful conversations!

UPDATES?CORRECTIONS:
Father Jaki is Hungarian, not Danish.
Geir informed me that the British Library was not missing SIGNED First Editions, just First Editions. The reason the number was so high was because they hadn't been very aware of the Collected Works and some of the US compilations, and then some special items that Geir had discovered through working with Aidan Mackey, which Aidan had discovered.