17. mai

Our national holiday started with rain. Our day, the day we celebrate that, in 1814, our constitution was written. Lots of rain and 2 degrees C, people are lining up by the university to walk down the hills to join the parade.




You can't have May 17th without walking in a parade, so I joined someone from the Uni marching down to the square where everyone was to line up. This is looking down from the top of a hill, down lots of stairs, to the square.




Not easy to see but there were so much people, I've probably never seen so many people in one place in my life. They were standing like this along the parade route, which went on for miles. The parade is where anyone can walk with a flag or a poster with the name of their group. There was anything from schools and kindergartens, sports teams, Bergen's football team and great pride had their own place, there were old cars and people on bikes, singing groups and I even saw some under the definition "those of us who don't have our place in the parade". It's like this in all of the country, but the bigger the town, the bigger the parade. So if you want to join, no one can stop you. Why would they want to?




Speeches, speeches, there are always speeches. It was raining though, then the sun came out. When we were watching the parade it started hailing. The weather kept changing. The secretary of the Children and Families part of the government had her speech but there weren't much people there. Was a little boring so we didn't stay long. I heard two and a half speeches, without having to, I feel proud! (I'm still a kid, really..)




The viking ship. They put this up just for the day, I think, they were taking it down the next. This was where they held the speeches. Clouds in the east.




The weather is always nice on May 17th. It did look bad in the morning but later the sun came and it was warm and oh so beautiful. I love trees and here's a picture of three of them. A few days later the pink flowers had started falling off but here they were just gorgeous; it was a perfect day in many ways.




The fire station all decorated with Norwegian flags. People still watching the parade, it never seemed to end. Another beautiful day in May, it's a special day. It's the childrens' day with ice cream and hot dogs. We don't have military parades. We have children, we have flags, we have the russ (gotta love it, I was blue). It's a happy day. If you're ever here on the 17th of May, get a flag and join the parade. You'll never forget it.