Am back from my rendezvous with the royals. I'll start narrating at the beginning.
I arrived in the church at 10.30, as I was one of the ones that were to sit at a table with the royals. I found my name-tag, and discovered that I was to sit next to Crown Prince Haakon
. We all got a brief introduction about the order of things - get up, sit down when the royals do, etc. and then proceeded into the main part of the church where the service would take place.
The orientation took about 15 minutes, so we still had 45 minutes before the arrival of the royals. Inside the church there were others who also had invites, but to the "service" part of the visit only. It was a long wait, several people had brought along their young children - who, quite frankly, were bored by the long wait. We did get another orientation to exactly what would be going on in the service part of it: Rise when the royal family enters, rise when they leave. No mention of curtsying - but most people did it as the royal family were leaving the room.
It was quite a normal service, bit short, with song by Norwegian singer Herborg Kråkevik, instead of one psalm.
After the service King Harald gave a speech. I thought he looked rather good. Then the Royals left for the room where they, and we were to have coffee and cake.
On my way in there I ran into Prince Henrik, who was speaking in French to one of the ladies in waiting (I think that was who she was, or possibly a private secretary. They had quite an entourage.) "Ah, C'est bon."
The royals were supposed to sit 10 minutes at each table, to get to talk to as many people as possible. I was on the table which Crown Princes Haakon and Frederik frequented last.
Man, they're so nice. Really, really nice. Frederik talked and talked about the new addition to their family. He's been keeping them up quite a bit at night, but he's fortunately getting into a pattern that is livable right now. He also kept mentioning how it was that he was growing from being a baby they brought home from the hospital to being an individual with his own quirks
And Haakon beamed up when we wished him good luck with the new baby, and said something on how exciting it all was.
Seriously, they're really really sweet. We chatted a bit, they asked what we were doing in Copenhagen, and we talked a bit on how most Danes seem to have a problem with Norwegian dialects, and how nice it was to study in Copenhagen. It was Frederik's first visit to a Norwegian Seaman's Church, but Haakon has been to quite a few. Frederik also talked about the military with one of the ministers and another guy sitting at the table.
And did I mention I was sitting next to Haakon?
The 10 minutes allotted were way too short, really.
On the way out, Sonja stopped and chatted with the flower girls - while the others signed the guest book. Frederik and Haakon gave an extra wave to the people at the two tables which they'd been seated at.
I suppose tonight on television in Norway, my family's playing "spy Norwegianne in these emissions" because there was quite a lot of television cameras, and a large portion of press attending. I recognized Kjell Arne Totland from Se & Hør...
This was a nice experience. I was so worried that I was going to be tongue-tied when I discovered that I was among the few lucky sitting at one of the tables where the Crown Princes were sitting, but they were nice and sweet, and it wasn't awkward at all. Well, a bit, because the purse on my Bunad slipped off when Haakon turned towards me to be introduced... but it was nothing big. A little laughter solved that potential embarrassment. He was also really interested when I said I was studying Library and Information Science, regarding all the new possible ways to do things like that in the future.
Summa Summarum: I had a really good time, and I may have picked with me Crown Prince Haakon's name-tag.