Anticipating The 17th of May in Norway

May 16, 2008
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There is something in the air, something exciting: It’s spring of course and it came fast in southern Norway this year, but even more: Tomorrow is The 17th of May. For most of you it might be just another Saturday – for Norwegians it’s our Constitutional or National day!

Everyone is participating – everyone is preparing; Fixing their best clothes (a lot use the National Costumes or: Bunad) and ironing their shirts. You also have to plan the menu – many have salmon or cured meats and sausages and the traditional sour cream porridge, others have barbecues and the day before you bake the cream cake with marzipan on top decorated with small Norwegian flags.

When walking from the bus stop to the office today, you could feel the anticipation in the air and then I heard it too. In front of TV2, one of the national broadcasters, I heard a marching band playing. As a curious person of course, I grabbed my mobile phone from my belt, and captured the moment: The program: ‘Good Morning Norway’ (the same where I was a guest in November last year, when my Terella was nominated as best European blog), reporting about what to expect tomorrow (click all pics to enlarge):

Prepare17MayOslo #1 Prepare17MayOslo #2
The drill corps in front of the band were strutting their stuff! To the right: notice the notes are covered in plastic (we are expecting rain tomorrow).


Then closer to the office, I saw another TV station doing almost the same:
Prepare17MayOslo #3 Photobucket
First going through the script and then the hosts talking about the day tomorrow with the brass band playing in the background.

Just beside them, I saw a Russ Bus, but sorry; did not take a picture as I had to rush for work. However, I’ll gladly show you an example from when my oldest boy was Russ and their bus was called: Mirage:
RussBuss

You see, The 17th of May is also the day students in the last year of secondary school celebrate the end of 13 years of education. They call themselves Russ, wear colourful overalls. High spirits are the norm and they generally have a lot of fun. They have their own processions with painted vans and buses decorated with slogans and jokes, and playing loud music. Read my post about my two son’s Russ Bus from 2003 and 2005!

For those who wants to read more about our culture, tradition and habits on our National Day, read my posts: ‘17th of May – Norway’s National Day in Oslo‘ and ‘17th of May – Norwegian Constitution Day‘.

So when leaving the office today, or in the end of all mails and telephone calls for the weekend, we ended: Happy 17th of May, or in Norwegian: Ha en God Syttende Mai!

Culture, Habits, Tradition