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Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree: Fever of love hits Sweden
She is smart, easy-going and hardworking
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he is smart, easy-going and hardworking. People call her the "green princess". She loves simplicity and often mixes with common people.
Her immense love for a commoner has made her extremely popular and a prime target of the paparazzi for more than six years.
She is none other than Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree, the only female heiress to a throne on the planet.
Just like in a fairytale, her father King Carl XVI Gustaf initially opposed her wedding to her own personal trainer Daniel Westling, but finally gave his royal assent in February 2009.
The marriage of Victoria and Westling, which will cost Sweden the hefty sum of 20 million Swedish kronor (US$2.5 million), is scheduled to take place today in Stockholm.
This lavish marriage comes at a time Sweden is just recovering from its worst recession. Some sections of Swedish society opposed the usage of taxpayers money for the royal wedding.
The Jakarta Post met the future Queen of Sweden in 2008, while she was attending a 10-day Global Tops seminar on peace and security at Sweden's Uppsala University.
Victoria, also the Duchess of Vastergotland, shared her thoughts on Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population.
"I would like to visit Indonesia in the near future. I heard about Indonesia's achievements as a democratic country and its pluralistic society," Victoria told the Post in Uppsala.
"I am very much impressed by how Indonesia peacefully solved its decades-old conflict in Aceh."
She opened the doors of her home, the Drottningholm Palace, to all the seminar's participants and showed them around.
"She is so amazing and kind. We are privileged to meet her," Luly Altruiswaty, an Indonesian participant, said.
"Crown Princess Victoria is humble and has a strong personality. I admire her," Gracia Maria Bertrand, a Honduras Supreme Court judge, told the Post.
The princess, who will turn 33 on July 14, was sent to an ordinary school to get accustomed to mingling with ordinary people.
The eldest daughter of King Gustaf was only made crown princess in 1980, after a change in the Act of Succession. Victoria has two younger siblings - Prince Carl Philip Edmund and Princess Madeleine Therese Amelie Josephine.
She studied political sciences at Yale University and peace and conflict resolution at Uppsala University. During her stay in the US, Victoria worked as an intern at the United Nations in New York in 2002.
"During my stay in the US, I also worked as an intern at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC in 1999," said Victoria, who studied at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm in 2004.
Her concern for the environment has earned her the nickname of "green princess".
"I am concerned about the environment. I don't want to use plastic bags, glasses at home. My staff know about this. Sometimes they try to hide their plastic bags from me," Victoria, who speaks fluent English, French and German, said jokingly.
Sweden produces most of its energy from waste and other renewable energy sources.
The seminar participants were stunned to see her drinking water from a tap in the toilet.
"Our tap water, be it in a house or a street, is clean and safe," Victoria said while munching an apple.
She is proud of Sweden, a poor, underdeveloped agrarian country that morphed into one of the world's most modern and industrial nations in just 100 years.
"I am proud of Sweden's achievements," Victoria said, highlighting various Swedish development aid programs carried out in tsunami-affected Sri Lanka in 2005, alongside a dozen other countries.
Victoria's marriage, which will be a lifetime experience for many Swedes, appears to have brought a new lease on life to Sweden.
"Since our National Day on June 6, we have been celebrating a two-week long festival of love in Stockholm with numerous events like music, dance, design, culture, food under the theme of love," Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia Ewa Polano told the Post on Wednesday evening.
And the love fever has surely turned Stockholm into a beautiful bride, about to showcase her beauty during the royal wedding. The last such wedding occurred in 1976, when Victoria's father Carl Gustaf, the then crown prince, married German-Brazilian Silvia Sommerlath, a commoner he fell in love with during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
According to the Swedish Royal Court, more than 950 guests, including kings, queens, princes and princess, prime ministers and presidents, will attend the colorful wedding at the Stockholm Cathedral.
Indonesian Embassy's Charge d' Affaires in Stockholm Iwan Lubis will attend the wedding, Polano said.
The Swedish monarchy has remained a popular institution with almost 80 percent of support from the 9.2 million Swedes until recently.
However, according to a recent poll, popular support for the Swedish monarchy has dwindled among the Swedes.
It remains to be seen, after uttering the magic words "I do", whether Victoria will reverse the trend and regain respect and love for the royal family like in the golden days.
