Hipp hipp, HURRA

Hipp hipp, HURRA

Today is the 17th of May, Norway's national holiday. Today, everyone in Norway puts on our finest clothes and gather on the streets of our nation where we wave flags and shout hipp hipp, HURRA! hipp hipp, HURRA! We watch parades and buy balloons and we eat as much candy and ice-cream and drink as much soda and champagne as our hearts desire. Meanwhile, the royal family (minus the king this year, who is recovering from heart surgery) stands on the royal balcony and waves to the ecstatic masses. It is all a very big deal.

I normally celebrate the day by going to a traditional 17th of May breakfast, a gathering of close friends all dressed up early in the morning where we eat a traditional Norwegian breakfast consisting of salmon, herring, scrambled eggs, etc and where we drink a lot of beer and champagne. From there, we go out and observe the masses and drink more beer or champagne and wave flags and make merry.

This year, I celebrated in the usual way, but I replaced my small Norwegian flag with a medium-sized American flag and walked around the streets just outside of Oslo waving my American pride. You see, I may be half-Norwegian, but I'm also half-American, and damned if I don't want to show how proud I am of my heritage on the 17th of May! I think I provoked some close-minded Norwegian hicks (bønder, we call 'em), but I felt that my American flag set off the beauty of the surrounding Norwegian flags quite nicely. Hipp hipp, HOO-RAY, I yelled.

All right, I could have done that, but I didn't. All I did today was split a bottle of wine with my boyfriend after we got off work this morning and then sleep for close to ten hours.

There has been a lot of hooplah here in Norway concerning which flags should be permitted on the 17th of May. The 17th of May committee in Oslo announced a few months ago that only Norwegian flags will be permitted on the 17th. Well, you make a stupid rule and you'll get a stupid reaction. Counties all over the country responded by inviting people of non-Norwegian descent to wave their own flag on the Norwegian national day, you know, to show that Norwegians love foreigners and everyone's welcome here and blah blah blah.

There is a valid reason for the debate. Norway actually has two national flags: the Norwegian and the Saami flags. Oslo, for some reason, doesn't want to wave the Saami one on it's main streets. An idiotic ruling that, as said, has created an idiotic reaction.

I couldn't really imagine flagging the ole stars 'n stripes on the 17th. Not because I don't love America, but because it's the 17th of May and not the 4th of July. But hey, you feel the urge, you go right ahead. Wave your American, Pakistani or Somali flag. Seems fairly moronic to actually forbid you...