Great weather! Great waffles! Great music! Great crowd! This is how the 2007 Norwegian Festival will be remembered. Click here to see the trolls, the vikings, the runners, the rockstars, and all the other highlights from this year's festival!
10/8/2007 :: 
One of the participants in the Troll Stroll - a fun race for kids between the ages of 2 and 10 - is racing to the finish line.
The Festival area was teeming with people enjoying the Norwegian food, music, dancing, and, of course, the unseasonably warm October weather, with highs approaching 90, in stark contrast with last year's torrential rain fall.
This year, the festival also featured StatoilHydro who donated $6,900 to the Norwegian TV-Gala Unite for Children, where the proceeds this year goes to UNICEF and Right To Play's work with children suffering from HIV/AIDS. To learn more about this, please visit /unite/.
As always, 9-time New York Marathon winner and running legend Grete Waitz was present, here with the first male and female finishers of the Norway Run, Deresse Deniboba and 15-year-old Elizabeth Briasco. The oldest finishing racer this year was Allen Flagg, who is 85 years old, and was one of the thousands of runners in the Norway Run. The youngest finishing racers in the Troll Stroll were 2 years old.
Singer/songwriter Marion Raven entertained at the festival area with her catchy music, here with Consul General of Norway to New York, Ambassador Liv Mørch Finborud.
Mats Silberg from the Norwegian Consulate in New York was this year's official Norwegian Troll, spending his morning running with (and slightly scaring some of) the kids in the Troll Stroll. Did we mention it was unseasonably warm?
What would a Norwegian festival be without a viking? Here Gisle Holsbø Eriksen, the resident (and comparatively friendly) Norwegian viking joined the young runners in the Troll Stroll. "No seriously, I let them win," Eriksen commented while recuperating after crossing the finish line.
Another winner this year was the very talented 4th grade student Elizabeth Warren of Manhattan, who won the Norwegian Festival drawing contest. Her winning design was featured on the Troll Stroll t-shirts, one of which is shown here by a very proud - and rightfully so - mother.
(All pictures by Thor-Arne Englund / Royal Norwegian Consulate General, New York City.)
Thor-Arne Englund / Royal Norwegian Consulate General, New York City.