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Columbus International Festival

November 4-6, 2005

One Small World

November 8-9, 2003

Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, Columbus

Scandinavian Club of Columbus Successful in International Festival

by Åke Hellström, ake@netexp.net

The Columbus International Festival 2003, "We All Smile in the Same Language," was quite successful for the Scandinavian Club. Our smiles were clearly much happier than all the other countries on this earth. We attracted large crowds - and we had to scrape up the last drops of salmon chowder in the pan to serve hungry visitors at the end.

Scandinavians do indeed have fun, as these pictures carry evidence.

Passport: Norma Johnson gives directions to a visitor who wants his "passport" stamped.

The festival, setting this year's theme to "We All Smile in the Same Language" has become a very popular event with more than 100 participating international and local organizations and under sponsorship of the United Nations.

The Club exhibit was one of the largest among all the participants, with a 50-foot-long booth offering a variety of delicious food items, Scandinavian cooking demonstrations and gift items for sale.

Information: Gail Svendsen answers questions about Scandinavia.

A popular feature of the festival is the "passport" that is issued to each visitor. Each of the exhibitors has a stamp that identifies the nationality or organizational name of the exhibit. The visitor ends the time spent at the International Festival with a booklet full of stamps as a reminder of every place visited. This is a very popular feature for children and adults.

Multilingual: When things get slow, we all get bored in the same language too.

A new Club display caught lots of interest. It replaces the shields often seen on the sides of Viking ships with happy faces.

Flags: Smiling club members Andy Garnes and Dale Svendsen stand in front of the array of Scandinavian flags: Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden

Salmon Chowder: Grete Kidwell is enjoying a visitor's joke nearly as much as the visitors enjoy the Scandinavian Salmon chowder she is serving.

Norwegian Krumkaker: Anne Marie Hoalst and James Gilbert serve the hot delicacies.

 The Scandinavian Club  of Columbus was founded in 1937 and has approx. 230 adult members.

The Club can be contacted at P. O. Box 14296, Columbus, OH 43214-0296.