At 9am we left for town dressed in our best, which for us wasnt much. Every county in Norway has a special dress, its kinda like the scottish and tartans. These outfits cost about 20,000 kroner (over 5ooo NZD) for the women and more for the men. Most of the women wear them but only a few of the men. The kids have them also but theirs are a bit different, more of a standard thing called a party dress this is as they are cheaper and kids grow fast.
You walk around and to any one you know you say "congratulations for the day" but in norwegian of course. The main features of the day are three parades. the first is for all the schools of the town starting with the kindergardens, which there are a suprisingly large amount of... there must be something in the water here. This parade is huge and must be kilometers long. This is followed by the "Russ" these are students who are finishing school, a long tradition where they wear funky pants and get up to mischief around town for a month ending today with them all well and truly hungover! The last is a parade for every club and organisation in town... and so most of the town ends up in at least one parade and so not too many people actually watching them parade! It is a very loud event where people call out slogans, blow whistles and wave more flags then we have ever seen in our lives! Next you all eat ice cream and spring rolls.
After all the excitement we went home for a nice nap (yay for sweet holiday naps) to prepair ourselves for the second part of the day which involves (as far as we can gather) large amounts of food and family.
So to all of you GRATULERE MED DAGEN! 
Catherine and Mattias
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