Graduation in Denmark

Graduation Day

This week I am in Denmark for the graduation from Gymnasium of my grand daughter, Nicole. This event is a huge celebration for the students and is a more important milestone than university graduation. It is a centuries old tradition and certainly a very public spectacle with the population willingly being party to the celebration.
I flew from Toulouse to Copenhagen to be present on this important occasion which marks the end of the three final years of high school study. My “graduate” arrived to meet me for breakfast in town looking very chic and stylish in her graduation cap (literally a graduant's beanie) which resembles a sailors cap. They wear their cap with pride at all times for a week. Capped students are stopped in the street and congratulated on their achievement. Tourist often try to buy the cap but they are a prized possession which the recipients keep, pretty much forever. School friends write messages in the lining and bite the rim and leave their teeth marks for good luck.

Saturday was the formal school ceremony with speeches and songs followed by each graduating student, the girls in white, receiving their diploma. As you can imagine the following drinks and nibbles provided by the school is a noisy affair with a hundred students and their families taking photos and blowing horns and whistles.

Each class then drives off in an assortment of hired and decorated trucks for a day of feasting and drinking. In the "olden days" this was a horse drawn vehicle. Once the trucks leave the school, their journey takes them to the home of every member of the class for sandwiches and drinks. Our job after the ceremony was to hotfoot it home to prepare for the class visit. As Nicole’s truck arrived the loud chanting of Nicole, Nicole announced their arrival, then a rush of girls and boys into her home to be feted, fed, congratulated and photographed yet again. The students drink copious amounts of alcohol during the day and make lots of noise. The wagon, truck or whatever vehicle they’ve chosen is driven at all times by the hired drivvr of the truck so parent worry about the consequences of this orgy of eating and drinking is minimized. The visit to each home is kept strictly to fifteen minutes and they arrive and leave in a great whirl of happiness and laughter.

Last night we went to celebrate at FIAT, a restaurant in Copenhagen. I had booked a table and requested to be seated in the courtyard. We arrived and were shown to what had to be the worst table, in front of the cloakroom and kitchen doors. We asked if perhaps a better table might be possible and a few minutes later were shown to what was arguably the best table in the restaurant. And it was all because of the power of that cap. Thank you and congratulations Nicole.