Syttende Mai, or the 17th of May, has been
Norway’s Constitution Day since 1814 when Norway declared independence. From
Sweden? Denmark? Unimportant. The three biggest celebrations in the world are
held in Oslo, Bergen, and Seattle. But Bergen is the best. We have the buecorps,
and the best bunad, and a toget that is so much longer than the city itself it
actually cuts itself off in parts and little drummer boys must alternate
crossing with Norwegian war veterans.
I began my 17 Mai celebrations early. Rachel and I both had
guests, me a Swede I met while living in Israel, she a Brit she met while
living in Thailand, so the conversation cross-referenced Israel, Thailand, and
Norway quite frequently. Yael came in from Stockholm Wednesday afternoon and
Rachel and Mim came over for some good old-fashioned American brinner. Nothing
like fat pancakes, waffles, and vodka for dinner (okay, so it was an
American-Norwegian breakfast). Mim’s Newcastle dialect challenged my lexicon
and drove Yael crazy.
We went out to Sjøbodn for some 16th Mai joy.
Sjøbodn’s so much fun because it’s in the warehouse bottom of one of the old
buildings on the Bryggen, and is less poshy than other Bergen hotspots. The
tables are barrels with wooden crates on top, the décor is of the Hanseatic
variety, and the music is live and fairly smooth, albeit unchangingly American.
We loaded up on Hansa and settled near the guitarist.
Apparently we looked like easy prey. A Norwegian man with a
full load (haha! Get the pun, Norwegian readers?) sat down at the table next to
us, and after a bit of work, made himself part of the conversation. His breath
reeked (halitosis is a venal sin, in my estimation) and his conversation
remained mostly basic as he was too drunk to really speak English well. He
pulled over a guy selling roses and gave us each a rose, since it was our
“first 17th”. He gave Rachel a drink, and then went to the bar and
came back with a plate of fifteen shots.
“You’re not drunk enough,” he said. “Have a shot.” Not drunk
enough to find you attractive? Not even fifteen drinks would help, buddy.
Rachel went for a shot anyways. Disgusted with his smell and obvious
intentions, I switched seats with Mim and let her and Rachel butter the guy up
so that they could get more drinks out of him. They’re from New Jersey and
Newcastle respectively, and I found myself wondering whether being from the
self-acclaimed trashiest part of each country as they are has inured them to
the nastiness of bar pick-ups.
Finally, Kyle and Mark came in, sopping wet, and with a
little adroit angling of chairs we managed to get our buddy Thomas to move on
to a girl in the corner, where he seemed to be making better progress. Mark
joked to Rachel that “that could have been you!” as the singer moved into his
second rendition of ‘Brown-Eyed Girl.’ Sometimes I really miss American humor.
Eventually we moved on to Café Opera, not neglecting to take our roses with us,
and returned to Fantoft late late late (but it still wasn’t dark out, of
course. Or at least, not night-dark, just rain-cloud dark) on a bybanen filled
with drunk russe. At the first stop, a pair of policeman got on and paced
through the aisle. At the second, they disembarked and a different pair got on.
We counted four sets of policemen on the bybanen that night. It made me feel
very, very safe. And filled me with trepidation for the morrow. What were they
expecting to happen?
17 Mai dawned bright (the raindrops were backlit with a
pearly cloud light that seems all the eerier since you can’t tell what the
light source is) and early (around 4 am). Yael and I were invited to Sigrun,
one of the English teachers I work with at Katten, for a traditional 17 Mai
breakfast. As we arrived, people in bunad carrying trays of food and umbrellas
filled the streets around us.
Bunad, or the traditional Norwegian dress, was probably the
coolest part of this day. Bergen looked as though dolls from the folk museums
had suddenly sprung to life and emerged to walk the streets. Everyone except
the tourists were wearing it. I felt transported back to the fifteenth century,
and suddenly realized how anachronistic modern dress appears against the wooden
houses and cobblestone streets of Bergen. The bunad police (an amorphous group
referenced throughout the day) strictly forbid the wearing of sunglasses or too
much makeup, but they can’t change the incongruity of a woman in apron and
bonnet buying a bybanen ticket, or a man in breeches and stockings texting on
his phone.
The very aura of the day was charged because of the
clothing. Watching a woman flounce down the street in her full skirt, I got the
feeling she felt as I do when I’m tricked out in yom tov finery. The bunad made
the day more than a 4th of July barbecue, into a festive and at the
same time slightly solemn day. Nobody was going to act stupid while wearing
40,000 kroner clothes. Oh, did I mention? Bunad cost quite a bundle. The
embroidery is all hand sewn, and silver and gold doodads hang all over it, and
only certain women have the technique. Most girls get them at the time of their
confirmation and wear them their whole life. Different regions in Norway have different bunad, so most of people's conversation on this day revolve around, "oh, and where is yours from?" It's a wonderful expression of patriotism that Norwegians normally don't allow themselves.
Sigrun was in bunad, as was Ødin, her adorable two-year-old
son, who stared at me with mouth wide open whenever I said anything in
Norwegian, no matter how much Sigrun and Erland assured me I had it right.
Erland, her husband, had opted out—less Norwegian men than women own bunad.
 |
| Sigrun and Ødin |
Traditional Norwegian breakfasts are delicious, and luckily
overlap with kashrut in quite a large way. We had thick slices of bread
slathered with strawberry jam, brunøst, and rokt laks (not all on the same
piece), along with fresh fruit that most definitely was not in season in Norway
in 1814. Yael’s Swedish is close enough to Norwegian that we could converse
quite comfortably, especially since weirdly, Stockholm Swedish sounds more like
Bergensk than Bokmål.
Around 10 we began to move towards the city, and crammed
onto a bybanen so packed that I could not turn my head straight but held it
stifled against an enormous Norwegian man’s jacket, praying that he wouldn’t
move his elbow, for fear my nose would be history.
The bysentrum was crowded with tourists, Bergenser,
balloons, flags, and booths selling hot dogs and umbrellas. We walked along the
pond in the center towards the festplassen and became aware of the sound of
drums. Boys in uniform were marching along beside us. We’d found one of the
feeder routes to the parade, and were accidentally walking with it. I was
reminded of one of my old roommate’s favorite comedians who said something
about how, if you get tired of a parade, you can just walk in the opposite
direction and it will fast forward.
We finally secured spots along the rail at the corner of
Olav Kyrres gate and Starvhusgaten. For the first half we watched the parade
between gaps in umbrellas. Then the weather began to improve and we snagged
slightly better viewing spots. Bergen presented an impressive pageant. Everyone
was there: the fire department, old veterans, little boys drumming, whole
swathes of colorful townsfolk in bunad, the rektor of the university in his
velvet cloak, and an impressive array of russ. Ah, I thought, here is Norwegian pride. Hidden all year long only to erupt fantastically at the start of spring. Worth it.
I was just as interested in
snapping pictures of the crowd as of the parade. Everyone had dressed up. It
really bothered me to see women in aprons and buckle shoes and embroidered
corsets bent over their phones and texting, or holding hot dogs and umbrellas
with logos for the Body Shop. But it was also a delightful sign of the march of
time and progress (are hot dogs progress?) and of how a modern society could
still remember the old.
Yael and I watched the people for hours, stopping for a
brief picnic of knekkebrød, Norsk agurk, and cheese before returning to the
melee. Fulbrighter flautist Sarah played with the Bergen band in the pagoda in
the city center, and we listened to most of the concert before drifting off to
watch the crowd hop from booth to booth of games. We returned to Fantoft in
time for some serious naps, solid soup and hot chocolate for dinner, and a good
deal of talk about the day.
Friday alternated clouds with sun. We hiked lazily up Landåsfjellet
and picnicked at the top, returning to the bottom in time to buy groceries and
cook for Shabbat. Thea came for lunch, bringing strawberries, and that with
Yael’s Swedish chocolate gave us the best dessert ever.
Sunday was one of the nicest days I’ve seen yet. After a
morning run, Yael and I went into the city. We watched the Bergen band play,
picnicked by the center pond, walked up Fløyen, and bought ourselves Softis.
Ice cream popped up everywhere. There were more hands with cones than empty.
Inbar, the Oslo Bnei Akiva shlicha, had called to let me
know she was coming into the city with two friends. The five of us bussed down
to Haukeland Skole to teach cheider and give the boys some Yom Yerushalayim
cheer. I have to say it was absolutely deliciously delightful to be the one
with the best handle on language—I could speak Hebrew with the Israelis,
explain things to the boys in Norwegian as the need arouse (Rosh Hamemshaleh?
Statsminister! Knesset? Stortinget!), and most definitely had the best English
in the crowd. Linguistic ability is the most basic of all human skills in
providing access to other people. What joy to have it in spades (in the right
surroundings, of course. I’d be rather lost in France).
We left cheider, where my boys had read up on different
battles of the Six Day War and had to brag to their friends about which they
had fought in, and then participated in a trivia quiz by the Israelis, for
home. It was so serene out, so peacefully blue and smelled so deliciously
sunwarmed, that we walked down to Gamlehaugen for a sit by the king’s tulips
and daffodils. We watched the gulls swoop in designs over the fjord. It was 9
pm by the time we realized it was evening. The sun was still arced high in the
sky. Our shadows stubby in front of us, we wended our way home and pretended it
was evening and time for dinner.
Tonight I go to Copenhagen with Amanda, and then Oslo for Shavuot.
I won’t return to Bergen for a week, which is horrible when I remember that I
have less than a month left. Don’t expect pictures from Copenhagen—my camera
broke right after 17 Mai. Which seems fitting. While in Norway I have broken my
kindle, laptop, camera, glasses, retainer, hiking boots, and snow boots. The
gods of small things hate me. Still, it’s that much less to carry home!
Enjoy the pictures!
Hi. I have been looking at your blog trying to decide if you are that girl whom I don't know half as well as I should like because you were reading when I visited Shanee. I have decided that you are - you look different when you are facing a camera instead of a book but Yael gives you away. Can you e-mail me? I want to ask you about Columbus, even though it is less interesting than Bergen. skookum613 at gmail. com. Thanks!
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