17th of May parade in front of Capitole

A french man asked me on the street yesterday: “C’est quoi ça?” It’s the celebration of the Norwegian national day!

This year I celebrated May 17th in the streets of Toulouse. In Norway, everyone dresses up in their finest outfit and celebrate the Norwegian constitution (of 1814). In Norway, there are flags everywhere, people are walking togehter in parades with marching bands and everyone’s singing.

The Norwegian celebration of the national holiday is unique, and we’re not stopped by being abroad. In Toulouse about 150 Norwegians gathered on Place Capitole at noon to have a parade to Université de Toulouse 1, where we later had cake, sandwiches, drinks and games!

Many Norwegians parading in Toulouse

It was during the parade a French man asked me the question above, a fair question – it’s not often you see people in France going in parade without manifesting their discontent with the government (or something else). :)

On the evening 17th we had a superb dinner at Bistro Romain on Place Wilson. More than 90 Norwegians found their way to the restaurant to celebrate our day! Happy birthday, Norway!

Apart from the national day of Norway, the weekend has been filled with Beer World Cup, basically a second round of Beer Olympics, but with less concequences and more people! Tom and I were title defenders in Beer Pong but lost our first match and were out of the competition. On the other hand I won Dizzy bat and I had great team members in Flip Cup so we won that one too! 2 out of 3 possible!

It’s a lot of school going on, so I have to stop this post here. Later!