May 17 in Norway

I like how in Norway they celebrate their Constitutional Day and have so much pride in it, who wouldn't? It made me aware that Norwegians have come a long way and have worked hard to be one of the world's richest and happiest countries. I count myself lucky every day for being here.

It's not really the same as indepence day back home when we fought for freedom from colonial rule but I understand the sense of celebration, it unites people and it's a beautiful day to show off our cultures and all that. Anyway, today I'd like to share my experience of May 17 in Norway. You should be aware that it was a bit different compared to all the other years due to the coronavirus(I'll get into that later), but by the end of the day I had an idea of how the day usually is, and I was very content with my experience.

According to what I've been told and what I saw on television from past celebrations, May 17 is a day of children's parades, lots of ice-cream, hot dogs and just getting together and celebrating how they are one as a country. There are parades everywhere. The huge parade in Oslo includes about 100 school's marching bands which passes the royal palace, where the royal family stand by the balcony and greet them. This time around, I saw on television that the King and Queen drove a little around the city, stopping at hospitals and random streets to just wave at the people. It was great to see how some people would just start jumping like crazy when they saw the royal family drive past them, I can imagine. That's huge!

But... this year was different.

The day started off with me, aunt Iselin and some other friends heading to Svanhovd to watch a small band play the national official song and a few others. There were a handful of people and so there was room for each group to be on their own, thus adhering to the rule of social distancing. It was really nice to see how people were eager to greet each other, even from a distance and just be around a group of people. Most folks had traditional Norwegian costumes on, also referred to as bunad. I think its really beautiful, especially because there are different designs based on where you come from and all that. Most dresses are really just beautiful.

Well, just before we got back from there Aunt Iselin thought it would be a nice idea to go skiing, in her bunad and me in the 'fancy' pants I had on. I thought that sounded fun and so we put our skis on and went out. It was hard to fathom that we are now slowly approaching summer and yet we still had so much snow, like enough to last at least another month(or more), I don't know.

I hadn't skied in a while so it was really nice to get out there, feel the fresh air and smell whatever it is that smelled like nature. Probably that pure, cold Norwegian air. It was fun seeing aunt Iselin ski in her bunad, I kept saying:

"You look like a true Norwegian, not that you're not. But still"

She laughed every time I said that.

A few minutes into our ski tour, we paused and took a lot of amazing pictures that I will exclusively be sharing with you. It was fun because we would switch and take pictures until eventually we ended up placing my phone on a tree, turned on the timer and took pictures together. Thank technology for that!

It was calm and just chilled, I was down for that. After that we headed home and had ice cream with chocolate powder, I thought that tasted really good. And then we had a special Norwegian dinner which was really good because the potetmos was home-made. Plus, whatever food aunt Iselin makes or I have anywhere in Norway is fancy to me because that's not what I always ate back home.

By the end of the day, we were invited to have some cake and had some wine with that( courtesy of aunt Iselin). We were five people, just enjoying the almost-not setting Pasvik sunset and having a cosy time. The cake was really good, and the wine was from South Africa!

Gratulerer med dagen, Norge!

Till next time

hearts, Queen

#norway #may17 #syttendemai #celebrations