The Swedish Royal family

In Sweden we still have a monarchy, though the king or queen don’t have any power anymore. These days the royal family mostly does charity work, ceremonial duties and representation of Sweden in other countries. One of their duties includes handing over the Nobel prices each year and hosting the dinner afterwards.
Tourists from especially Germany where they don’t have monarchy find our royal family and the castles very interesting so the monarchy also attracts tourists.
The royal family has now six members: King Carl XIV Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown princess Victoria, Princess Madeleine, Prince Carl Philip and Victoria’s husband Prince Daniel.

King Carl XIV Gustaf

Carl XIV Gustaf is our beloved king. Even people who aren’t a fan of monarchy or the royal family usually likes the king, mostly because he’s so funny. Unfortunately, he’s seldom funny on purpose, but since he’s a public person it’s OK to laugh anyway. He has dyslexia and can also seem a bit bewildered sometimes which makes him an easy pick for comedians who do imitations.
The king is 65 years old, which is the official retirement-age in Sweden so it has been some speculations about the possibility of him stepping down soon. I for one hope he will stay king until he dies, I love him.

Example of what people with too much spare-time does to make fun of the King:
http://zverige.com/kingkong/

Queen Silvia

Silvia and our king, then crown prince, met in Germany during the Olympic Games in Munich 1972 and fell in love instantly. That year is now known in Sweden as “the year it clicked”. Silvia is half German, half Brazilian and was really gorgeous when she was young. She married the recently crowned king Carl Gustaf in 1976 and then became Queen of Sweden. Silvia does a lot of charity and is really engaged in children diseases and dementia and she was one of the founders of World Childhood Foundation. She is more anonymous than the king but is still well-liked among most people. To speculate over what dress she will wear to the Nobel party is as much fun every year, I love it. (Yes, I’m a total sucker for royalties.)

Crown princess Victoria & Prince Daniel

Victoria is now our Crown princess, but was born as just a Princess since a woman couldn’t inherit the throne back then. She is the oldest of the king’s and queen’s three children and is also the most responsible.
Daniel is basically a normal person who just happened to get the Crown princess as a customer at his work as a personal trainer. It’s a real Cinderella story, only backwards. They fell in love in 2002 and got engaged after the appropriate time of seven (!) years in 2009. Talk about moving slowly.
Victoria and Daniel got married last summer, which except the football world championship was the highlight of the summer. They are now expecting their first child and Victoria’s belly is now referred to in the media as “the royal bump”, which I find hilarious.

Princess Madeleine and Prince Carl Philip

These two don’t do very much. They are both good-looking and mostly just glide through life and look gorgeous on photographs. Sometimes they cause a few headlines and I guess they have some sort of tasks and duties, but you just don’t notice them as much. The prince is driving race cars or something and the princess does some charity work, but since none of them will inherit the throne they don’t really have to keep up as much as Victoria. Just livin’ the good life.