Category: Other bits
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Victoria & Daniel: Wedding 2010
They had waited so long – but today, it became official. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden received permission from the State Council and the King, and will be marrying Mr. Daniel Westling in the early summer of 2010. Daniel will receive the title Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland, thus taking the male version of his future wife’s ”Duchess of Västergötland
The news of the imminent engagement was first broken by Swedish newspaper Expressen, who declared that the couple would marry, and that even before the requisite permissions had been collected. Aftonbladet correctly predicted that the wedding would happen summer 2010, and published a guesstimate of the guest list
Victoria and Daniel met in 2001, and have been a couple since 2002.
The Royal Twist congratulates the happy couple, and will of course be following the preparations for the happy day.
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The Danish Home Guard
With Crown Princess Mary in training for the Danish Home Guard: Army, Billed Bladet has pulled out pictures from the time her mother-in-law, Queen Margrethe II, went through the training for the Airforce branch of the Home Guard.
The Home Guard stands strong among the Danish female royals: the Queen’s sister, Princess Benedikte is a member of the Navy branch of the organization.
The Danish Home Guard is a part of the Danish military. It has around 50,000 volunteers, and 650 full-time employees. It was formed in 1945, by former resistance fighters, who wanted to ensure that Denmark had a wide network of people who knew how to fight, if Denmark was to be invaded again. Today, the organization deals with education of military forces sent out for deployment, and with more civilian matters inside Denmark, such as handling environmental or other emergencies where the government is in need of extra hands.
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Learning the languages of the country?
While in Finnmark, Haakon and Mette-Marit received the question of whether or not Princess Ingrid Alexandra would be receiving training in the Sámi language. The Crown Princely couple replied that it was doubtful as not all schools offer lessons in the language, but that if they really wanted to, they would have to look at the offering in the area.
The Sámi version of NRK has examined the matter further, and for Ingrid Alexandra to receive Sámi classes, there would have to be nine other children on her age level in the municipality demanding it, as she is not of Sámi descent and not living in Oslo. The other option would be private lessons.
If she follows the public school plans, Ingrid Alexandra will start learning English as a second language in elementary school. She will pick up a third language in middle school, with possibilities for picking up more in high school, depending on what the school offers. But presumably, in Asker municipality, there will be no Sámi classes.
Princess Ingrid Alexandra will start elementary school in August 2010.
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Marie’s Danish
In this video posted by Her & NU, from Joachim, Marie, Nikolai and Felix’ winter holiday in Switzerland, we can hear Marie speaking quite a lot of Danish. It is evident that she is still learning the language, as she sometimes looks to Joachim for explanation to certain questions the journalists are asking, or how to phrase certain replies, and she also speaks English and French in the video. However, the chief parts of the Danish pronunciation seems to be in place. It does not sound overly French-Danish. Furthermore, she seems to answer the questions in the language she gets them, if she can.
For someone who’s been learning the language for a year, I would say, it is a fairly good effort so far.
For those curious about the pregnancy, they said that it is going well, but that she’s having back-pains and therefore some trouble sleeping. (After which Nikolai was ready with questions about pregnancy- which were probably more detailed than his father was ready to answer in front of journalists, as he was stopped rather quickly 😉 )
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Norwegian official visit to Mexico
The Norwegian royal court has announced that Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit will be making an official visit to Mexico, from March 16 to March 19.
With their official visit to Chile last year, Mette-Marit caught the stomach bug, and Haakon had to make the trip on his own. One hopes that they will be luckier this time.
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The Norwegian Institute of Fashion
Tonight, the Norwegian Institute of Fashion opened its doors for the first time, during the Oslo Fashion Week. Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who has made a habit of fronting Norwegian fashion and designers, attended the opening. She is the high protector of the Norwegian Design Council.
The institute has been in the works since 2006. The aim of getting such an organization together is to make the Norwegian fashion world more professional, and to raise the level of ambition and knowledge to those working in the industry.
The purpose of the fashion institute is to build networks, cooperation between subject areas, supervise trends, work at knowledge development, recruit and be an unifying channel towards embassies, financial institutions and investors. With the current financial situation of the world in mind, it seems to be a smart choice to try to work together as a whole to promote the fashion rather than have everyone make their own way.