Funny Denmark

One of the pleasures of living in a foreign country is that you often notice silly little things that the natives take for granted (you also notice the same kind of things about your own country when you return). I thought about this earlier today when I heard the ice-cream man driving his truck up our street and ringing his bell with abandon - in the middle of a blinding snow storm. The ice-cream truck is such a long-standing tradition here, that I am not even sure Danes recognize the absurdity of that.

But what really inspired me to write this post was what just happened on TV. The best television station in Denmark (arguably) is the fully public station DR1- great news, sports, documentaries, Oscar winning movies - all without commercials. But, despite all of this fantastic stuff, I am occasionally flabbergasted by their programming choices. Tonight was one of those occasions.

DR1 produces X-factor (Danish version of American Idol). The show is HUGELY popular. I think at least half the country watches. Tonight the two finalists are giving a live, outdoor concert in the Copenhagen town hall. DR1 has the exclusive broadcast rights for the concert. The show started at 7 pm, and we huddled up on the couch with the girls and started watching with anticipation. It was shaping up to be a great concert, but suddenly, about 15 minutes into it, they stopped the broadcast (not the concert) and announced that now they would be moving on to the next program.

The girls were totally bummed and Mathilde and looked at each like DR1 must be nuts. I joked that they probably had an important show about basket weaving to broadcast. I couldn't have been more wrong. The program they interrupted the concert to broadcast was not about baskets - it was about enemas. I'm not kidding. We even got to see a little preview clip with liquid flowing through a giant plastic tube... oh the joy :-)