17. mai

picture found in dagbladet, this author right thing is hard stuff, if the photographer objects to my using it, I'll take it down at once.

Hurra!

It is the waddoyoucallit national day? in Norway, and for the first time in years I am a bit sad not to be there. My traditional costume could do with an airing, and there is this certain energy in Norway that day that I miss. It is when a mostly calm, timid, quiet people suddely turn outgoing, smiling to everyone on the street, and shouting in public while wawing small flags. It is done with a sheepish look on our faces, I must add, but that is part of the charm.
It is an eat-all-the-icecream-you-can-day, and barbecue-parties in the evening are frecuent if not warm.(rain, even snow would not be unusual, warm weather is something of a rarity)

There are parades in the morning with all the schools, and the "skolekorps" are out there providing background music of national anthem and every other patriotic song and military march there is. And for a small country we have a lot of them.

The day is about celebrating our constitution, signed in May in 1814 (I hope I remember this right..). And in a way it is also a sort of welcome of spring without it being said or thought. Greenery and flowers are used as decoration and we spend most of the day outside.. A sort of belated May-day.

Anyways, I feel a bit lost here at the other end of Europe, looking at the pictures in the newspapers.. But this evening I will, if I have time before ballet class, eat pistachio ice cream, strolling down to El pilar and to the river and bask in the sun.