The 17th of May, otherwise known as syttende mai (May seventeenth) in Norway, is a national holiday celebrating the adoption of the constitution in 1814. Every year on this day Norwegians fill the streets with traditional dress and parades, all the while enjoying endless amounts of ice-cream and hot dogs. For me, the 17th of May was one of the best days of my time here and brought out several unique cultural aspects of Norway.

The day began with a breakfast feast of fresh baked rolls, fresh fruit, poached eggs, and of course brunost (the famous Norwegian brown cheese). Besides the cheese, this sounds like a typical American breakfast, but here in Norway this menu is a bit more special.

Next on the list was to get decked out in the proper holiday clothing. Of course, everyone who has the traditional Norwegian bunad (see picture below) will wear it, but for everyone else a formal dress or suit will do just fine. It is quite common for women to have their own bunad, while I would estimate about a third of the men also have their own. One of the most fascinating characteristics of the bunad is how the differing designs and patters are unique to different geographical locations. One can tell where a person comes from by simply looking at these distinguishing designs. For example, take a look at the picture below of two of my good friends, Arild and Anne, in their traditional bunads. Arild, sporting one of the coolest male bunads I’ve seen, comes from southern Norway in the region near Oslo, while Anne comes from the high mountains of western Norway. I know that it’s hard to see some of the differences, so check out the photo album for more pictures of bunads and syttende mai!

Anne and Arild

For the rest of the morning, I enjoyed walking around downtown Lillehammer watching the children’s parade and eating ice cream. This is the time when the children’s parade took place and was probably the biggest event of the day. School children of the equivalent age of elementary school march through main street representing their own school with pride. Many of the schools have their own small marching band, clothing, and banner.

Children’s parade

For most of the afternoon, everyone simply socialized and soaked in some sunshine. As part of my socializing, I got to meet a couple of Norway’s great talents in biathlon. Emil Svendsen and Julie Bonnevie-Svendsen, both of whom live in Lillehammer. It was fun to meet them and talk a bit about their lives outside of biathlon.

Later in the afternoon I watched a second, less formal to say the least, parade. May 17th is also the last day of Russ, which I shortly explained in my last post as the graduation celebration from upper-secondary school. The parade included ridiculously hilarious demonstrations by drunken teenagers in large red American vintage vans. I really don’t think this would fly in the US, but the Norwegians lining the street (in their formal clothing) simply looked upon this with no concern and small children in hand. I guess this is what is expected of teenagers in Norway during Russefeiring.

Norwegianized American Van

NTG Lillehammer Russefeiring

The day ended with a barbeque at my apartment and traditional games. All in all, a great day to be in Norway—totally would recommend it!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Norway, Student Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.