It was a lovely sunny morning and even if we got late according to the schedule we were perfectly almost an hour before anything happened.
And what was about to happen?
This was a Saturday, THE Saturday of 17 of May, which is the Norwegian national/independence day. The special thing this year was that it was now exactly 200 years since Norway got it's first own constitution. 17.5 is "syttene mai" (17th of May) in Norwegian and it's also a common nickname for this day. I was really excited to get to celebrate this unique day with some locals!
As I stepped out in the at least +20 and sunshine at 9am I thought to myself: I'm gonna be red as a lobster before lunch
I was wrong,
it wasn't until after lunch, maybe around 15-16 o'clock
and I wasn't even that badly burned
only my back suffered
Yeah, so, the first happening of the day for us was to watch a children's parade through the town. I had never seen a real parade before (live) and this was a kind of parade that I had no expectations for, because I didn't know what to expect.
there'll be a lot of photos in this post
just saying
and I actually just picked the best and the most interesting and so on
the children's parade:
The parade ended at the sports center, with nice grass pitches. We left to one of the teacher's house, so I don't know what kind of program there was held. For the next hours we ate hot dogs and ice cream and talked. The whole day was basically a lot of chilling and talking.
As can be seen on some of the pictures, a lot of people walked around in these national costumes, called bunad in Norwegian. Different regions have different kinds of costumes/dresses. The fantastic thing about this is that so many people wore bunads, children, teenagers, adults and old people. Here it's cool to have one and to wear it, and many families have such clothes. This phenomenon has not really been seen in Finland, and it's a petty. Or I haven't at least not seen people walking around the whole day with any national dress. I think it's a petty, because these kind of clothes use to be beautiful.
The most surprising thing for me was that we were encouraged by the Norwegians to bring our countries flags with us and to wave them around just like the others. First it felt really strange, but then I got over it and thought, "well, if people have always been waving around with other flags than the Norwegian and still haven't got hurt, then why not?"
Until it was time, at the children's parade.
I just wasn't able to hold the Finnish flag in my hand among all the bunads and the hundreds of Norwegian flags on their 200th independence day. So I put it in my backpack, but it was too small so the flag stuck out anyway. But no one cared. And no one minded the Swedish flags either, but I heard that someone had looked down at some Danish flags (Norway was a part Denmark before it got independent).
I actually felt stupid walking around with a Finnish flag. You know, I was there celebrating Norway and not Finland.
I can only imagine what would happen to the poor souls waving a Russian (or Swedish) flag when Finland turns 100. Or maybe it's just me I don't know.
That was an interesting cultural shock.
It's funny how I suddenly cared so much about flags and nationalities.
After all the pølse og is (sausage and ice cream) it was time to join the big parade of the day.
In the big parade there were all the soccer teams, the car collectors with their cars, all the people from all the organisations and such groups and also more cars with Russes, who still had their water guns and who still missed me (I think I have to thank my camera at least partly for that, only idiots shoot water on persons holding cameras) and some of them ran into the audience and attacked their friends. our Abis also drive around, in February after their last day of school, but they trow candy to the audience.
And we joined this parade too, with the same destination as last time, but this time we stayed. The mayor held a speech, there were some performances and the Russe president held a touching speech to the memory of a student who just recently passed away. After the speech balloons were released in the air and they flew high up in the sky.
We foreigners didn't really know what was about to happen later that day, or why we sat there for around two hours, we were all kind of confused. And the plans changed all the time, or at least it felt like that.
After the speeches and performances there was this race...
... and I didn't get the idea, but it seemed like some kind of annual thing and it also seemed like they had a lot of fun.
The water guns were seriously everywhere.
And so many had burned themselves, it was like any day i July and no one had apparently prepared themselves. It must have been hot to wear those woolen bunads, or so I heard.
Eventually the new plans were sorted out and we left and had dinner, and this time we ate tacos, not hot dogs (that more or less seems to be an unofficial national dish and don't forget the ice cream).
We had a great time the whole evening, I got to know new people and got some great new friends!
I don't know what to say, it was very interesting and fun to celebrate an other country's independence day, especially when it was a special year to celebrate it!
When I at some point went to sleep, I fell asleep immediately, with my Justin Bieber sheets.
I have no idea why, but these a pretty much the only pictures of the actual environment, of which three of them are taken after the sun had set. I thought I was good travel photographer. I was wrong. It's funny how I've complimented the nature but don't have any pictures of it. Well, here are some, hope they in some way are enough.
This just means that I have to go back.
That'd be really great actually
And what was about to happen?
This was a Saturday, THE Saturday of 17 of May, which is the Norwegian national/independence day. The special thing this year was that it was now exactly 200 years since Norway got it's first own constitution. 17.5 is "syttene mai" (17th of May) in Norwegian and it's also a common nickname for this day. I was really excited to get to celebrate this unique day with some locals!
As I stepped out in the at least +20 and sunshine at 9am I thought to myself: I'm gonna be red as a lobster before lunch
I was wrong,
it wasn't until after lunch, maybe around 15-16 o'clock
and I wasn't even that badly burned
only my back suffered
Yeah, so, the first happening of the day for us was to watch a children's parade through the town. I had never seen a real parade before (live) and this was a kind of parade that I had no expectations for, because I didn't know what to expect.
there'll be a lot of photos in this post
just saying
and I actually just picked the best and the most interesting and so on
the children's parade:
 |
| The seniors of the high school in town, called Russe (Abi in Finland) |
 |
| Eventually we joined the parade ourselves with the rest |
The parade ended at the sports center, with nice grass pitches. We left to one of the teacher's house, so I don't know what kind of program there was held. For the next hours we ate hot dogs and ice cream and talked. The whole day was basically a lot of chilling and talking.
As can be seen on some of the pictures, a lot of people walked around in these national costumes, called bunad in Norwegian. Different regions have different kinds of costumes/dresses. The fantastic thing about this is that so many people wore bunads, children, teenagers, adults and old people. Here it's cool to have one and to wear it, and many families have such clothes. This phenomenon has not really been seen in Finland, and it's a petty. Or I haven't at least not seen people walking around the whole day with any national dress. I think it's a petty, because these kind of clothes use to be beautiful.
The most surprising thing for me was that we were encouraged by the Norwegians to bring our countries flags with us and to wave them around just like the others. First it felt really strange, but then I got over it and thought, "well, if people have always been waving around with other flags than the Norwegian and still haven't got hurt, then why not?"
Until it was time, at the children's parade.
I just wasn't able to hold the Finnish flag in my hand among all the bunads and the hundreds of Norwegian flags on their 200th independence day. So I put it in my backpack, but it was too small so the flag stuck out anyway. But no one cared. And no one minded the Swedish flags either, but I heard that someone had looked down at some Danish flags (Norway was a part Denmark before it got independent).
I actually felt stupid walking around with a Finnish flag. You know, I was there celebrating Norway and not Finland.
I can only imagine what would happen to the poor souls waving a Russian (or Swedish) flag when Finland turns 100. Or maybe it's just me I don't know.
That was an interesting cultural shock.
It's funny how I suddenly cared so much about flags and nationalities.
After all the pølse og is (sausage and ice cream) it was time to join the big parade of the day.
 |
| the Red Cross |
 |
| I never though that such a small town would have so many football/soccer players |
 |
| Welcome to Norway |
In the big parade there were all the soccer teams, the car collectors with their cars, all the people from all the organisations and such groups and also more cars with Russes, who still had their water guns and who still missed me (I think I have to thank my camera at least partly for that, only idiots shoot water on persons holding cameras) and some of them ran into the audience and attacked their friends. our Abis also drive around, in February after their last day of school, but they trow candy to the audience.
And we joined this parade too, with the same destination as last time, but this time we stayed. The mayor held a speech, there were some performances and the Russe president held a touching speech to the memory of a student who just recently passed away. After the speech balloons were released in the air and they flew high up in the sky.
We foreigners didn't really know what was about to happen later that day, or why we sat there for around two hours, we were all kind of confused. And the plans changed all the time, or at least it felt like that.
After the speeches and performances there was this race...
... and I didn't get the idea, but it seemed like some kind of annual thing and it also seemed like they had a lot of fun.
The water guns were seriously everywhere.
And so many had burned themselves, it was like any day i July and no one had apparently prepared themselves. It must have been hot to wear those woolen bunads, or so I heard.
Eventually the new plans were sorted out and we left and had dinner, and this time we ate tacos, not hot dogs (that more or less seems to be an unofficial national dish and don't forget the ice cream).
We had a great time the whole evening, I got to know new people and got some great new friends!
I don't know what to say, it was very interesting and fun to celebrate an other country's independence day, especially when it was a special year to celebrate it!
When I at some point went to sleep, I fell asleep immediately, with my Justin Bieber sheets.
I have no idea why, but these a pretty much the only pictures of the actual environment, of which three of them are taken after the sun had set. I thought I was good travel photographer. I was wrong. It's funny how I've complimented the nature but don't have any pictures of it. Well, here are some, hope they in some way are enough.
This just means that I have to go back.
That'd be really great actually
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