Just while it is in my head – and because we’ve Scottish friends staying with us at the moment – here are some lesser-known things about Copenhagen and Denmark in general.
The buses (single decker, yellow) sometimes drive around with Danish flags on the roof. A sign that it’s one of the Royal family’s birthdays or a special day like 5th June, Danish Constitution Day. Inside the bus there are pictogram signs to indicate that you are not allowed to consume drinks, icecreams or…hotdogs! (more on those another time)
I’m proud to say that Denmark is an extremely liberal and generally very tolerant society. Three cheers for that!! If you look in the ‘Births, Marriages and Deaths’ section of the newspaper, you can see happy, smiling, newlywed photos of the bride and groom. Or the bride and bride. Or the groom and groom.
The most popular baby girl’s name right now is Emma. In fact, it’s been in the statistical top 10 for the last decade. But how about calling your baby daughter ‘Grit’? Not very common, and not in the top 100, but I do know one girl by that name. ‘Lucas’ is this season’s hot name for baby boys (24 out of 1000 boys will be christened with that name). Not quite so international sounding are the boys’ names “Bent” and “Strange”!
And what about my name? Mum and Dad thought they had chosen a fairly unsual name for me and were rather chuffed with themselves. Until the day I started school in Scotland, and there were three ‘Dianes’ in my class! In Denmark, out of the current population of 5,519,441 there are only 150 who share my name. Which would make me rather exotic… 🙂