A Lesson on Sweden

After spending the weekend with our SWEDISH friends we are now experts on Sweden.

Sweden has a king and queen. (Weird huh?) I find it odd that kings and queens still exist. I might be giving away my previous ignorance about Europe, but before moving to Denmark two years ago I thought all that stuff was from way back in the days before cars were invented. You know, draw bridges and moats, kings and queens, fire breathing dragons, etc....

Anyways. Sweden (and many other countries) still have kings and queens. But guess what, they can't vote, so they don't have any power. They don't really "rule" anything or make any decisions, BUT they do really wear tiaras and crowns! It's just for fun, but I guess they plan an important role for promoting their countries. Helping other countries, telling people to be nice, country pride... like a mascot. :)

I will admit it was funny to see these grown ups in these huge sparkly dresses, wearing crowns, like a four year olds at Halloween! But it's all for real!! :) Some looked nice, some looked pretty "royal". ...but that was just me judging people on their appearances. :)

So. The King and Queen invited all the other Kings and Queens to come see their Princess get married. Everyone put on crowns and sparkly dresses and had a HUGE party!

Geez, I hope I'm not offending my Swedish friends. I'm just being silly and offering up my American view. :) It's just such a unique concept to me. Really. But I was impressed how much my friends knew about it. They were able to list off who was walking down the aisle and point out different royalty from different countries... I'm happy to know who the US Secretary of State is. (Hillary Clinton right?) :) It seems other nationalities know so much more about their countries than I know about my own, but that just may be me. I've never been political... sorry.

Anyways... I don't know the complete Swedish story, but I know more today then I did three days ago, and so here is your education on Swedish royalty: Please don't quote me on it. :)

There is a king and queen who lived in Sweden. They had a little girl. Two years later they had a little boy... I don't know his name, but the boy was going to be king, because the first born son gets to be king. BUT when the little boy was two they changed the rule. NOW it was the first born child... the DAUGHTER. So the daughter, who was four, turned into a princess. (Hey Ingrid, are all the children of king/queens called princes and princesses but the one who will be King/Queen is the CROWN princess?)

Anyways, now the oldest daughter was the Crown Princess. I wonder why they changed the law? Maybe the two year old little boy was a bit like my nearly two year old Andrea and Sweden got a little scared!!!

So now the Swedish Princess, CROWN princess, is getting married. She is 32. So very young like me... (She's not queen until her both? her parents die.) BUT the part of the story that is unique is that she married her personal trainer! Sounds like a tabloid! :) I guess she had to wait forever and change a bunch of laws to be able to marry someone who wasn't "royalty", but she did and she married him and the poor guy looked like a confused squirrel during the entire event. His parents too! It was cute to watch his parents... just normal parents ...doing the first dance with the KING & QUEEN and all the other kings and queens from wherever has kings and queens. :)

Sounds a little Aladdin like huh?

So It was a big event and we watched it on TV. Was it covered in American on any news channels?

Here is some more of my American opinion. I think Kings and Queens are not fair. (Blah, blah, blah... life's not fair. How many times have I said that to my kids?!) Why just because someone is born to certain parents are they suddenly special? I know it happens to movie stars kids and presidents kids and etc... but the whole term King and Queen and Prince and Princess just seem so Disneyland to me. :) But I guess if they don't rule and get to pick what goes on then it is okay...

Nevertheless, my children and I watched the Crown Princess of Sweden get married and when the girls saw a picture of her today they all recognized who she was and that "funny looking guy" she married. :)

I am happy we had the chance to watch it with some real live Swedes too. It was pretty amazing all the things that this wedding had going on. I was happy to get to see it... and I didn't know I even wanted to! I'm sure you can google it or youtube it, but you won't get to watch it with real Swedish people who can tell you all about it!