17mai / 17th of May / Norway’s 200th Birthday
Yesterday I celebrated my first 17mai in Alta Norway. Unfortunately, the weather was absolute crap. I didn’t take a lot of pictures due to the drizzly, windy weather but I did have a fantastic days anyways (and I managed a couple of pictures with my phone). We celebrated almost completely traditionally, except for the champagne breakfast. Unfortunately my boyfriend was working on-call this weekend so he couldn’t partake in any alcohol. Maybe it’s just my “Minnesota-nice” upbringing but I didn’t want to leave him out so neither of us had anything to drink. Luckily there was plenty of food to eat instead.
Bløtkake
Alex and I started making ours the day before. I don’t know if this is traditional but I’m glad be did because it made the cake really moist on the inside. Ours was not homemade per say. We did however assemble all the store boughten elements at home. First we started with a finished sukkerbunn that was already cut into three layers. Then we filled our first layer with a whip cream/strawberry jam combo that was easily my favorite layer. We also put fresh strawberries in this layer. The second layer had a vanilla cream which and banana combo that was also tasty but next year I think we will just to a vanilla whip cream instead. Lastly we topped the whole cake with a thick layer of whip cream. This was the end of day one preparation. On 17mai we finished the whole cake off by decorating it like the Norwegian Flag, and I have to say, it was a handsome looking cake.
Yes, the bunny is still a leftover Easter decoration.
These were the only decent pictures I managed to take but I did capture a couple more on my phone. They aren’t great but this one is a pretty good shot of all the cake layers.
It may be embarrassing to admit but this cake was so good that nearly half of it is gone already and it was just me and my boyfriend doing the damage. Good thing 17mai is only once a year.
Besides eating cake we also had pølse cooked in a warm broth. It’s simple but tasty and a fun tradition. We would have also have an ice-cream cone out in the city but the weather was not really ice-cream appropriate in my opinion so we skipped that tradition. Even though the weather wasn’t great ‘t we did still go to see the 17mai toget/17th of May parade in the city. I didn’t take any pictures (since I was shivering with my hands in my pockets) but when the russbusses came by there was one that needed to be documented.
I don’t think they got the blue quite right but who cares! Did anyone else watch Scooby Doo?! Blast from the past! Now I sort of want one.
I know it doesn’t sound really eventful but I had a nice relaxing day. Maybe next year we will travel to a bigger city to celebrate the 17th but I still had a great time in Alta…
even though no one could see my cute dress under my jacket =P
and even though we had to wait in the car for the parade to start!
Gratulerer med dagen Norge! Jeg had en kjempefin dag!
-Steph
