17th of May
(syttende mai). Norway's Constitution Day - celebrating the day when Norway signed their constitution and became an independent nation - beginning to sever its ties to Sweden.
I celebrated my first syttende mai with Stian and friends (both new and old). We were invited to a champagne breakfast in the morning. It was incredible.
What a fantastic way to start the morning! I loved looking at all the bunads. They have so many intricate details. Bunads differ by region, so a person like Stian from the Sogndal area will have a bunad that looks very different than a person from Bergen or the north of Norway.
My biggest priority for the day was to go into the city to watch the parade and take in all the action. I wasn't sure this was going to happen as we were in a house pretty far away, and just about everyone was drinking. Luckily, some other people wanted to go, so we ended up taking a bus.
It was incredibly crowded, but I loved it.
We tried to catch the parade, but only saw a little bit of it.
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| The Fire Station |
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| Motor bikes...they did a few tricks |
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| Hipp hipp hurra for syttende mai!! |
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Super expensive balloons and bunads everywhere! Many of the strollers were decked out with Norwegian flags too!
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| My friend Astrid and I near the fish market. |
We spent a lot time walking around, until we found a pub that had somewhere to sit. The whole city looked like walking umbrellas.
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drinks all around!
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I absolutely love this bunad pin! I want one for next year.
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| I just love it!!! On my Christmas list for next year. :) |
It was a great first syttende mai. We didn't have any of the traditional foods in the afternoon (namely rømmegrøt -sour cream porridge, and hot dogs and ice cream), but there's always next year!
Gratulerer med dagen! Hipp Hipp Hurra!
i think you must have been standing across the road from us lol! i am glad you had a good time you looked fantastic!
ReplyDeleteThat looks like my kind of table setting! And I adore all the traditional garb!
ReplyDeleteLooks like a fab breakfast, wow! And about those balloons, eh?? We were shocked too about how spendy they were, haha! I wish my husband had a bunad, I think they're quite lovely on the guys :) Hope you had a good first experience of the holiday!
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the pin is being used as a sløyfer, I don't think it's standard, I've seen the broach seperatly but not as a sløfer like that.
ReplyDeleteIf you like it there's a place in Marken that does custom items http://www.juvelfatterne.no/assets/bergenssmykker/bryggen_bunad_gull.html I'm fairly sure that they carry the "pin" you saw as a standard if not try A.Lohne in Galleriet.