When people get married in Denmark, they crowd around the bride and groom when they waltz their first waltz, pushing in close, clapping and laughing and singing along, and then they pick up the groom and take off his shoes and cut off the toes of his socks with scissors.

At least, that's what happened at yesterday's wedding in Copenhagen. And the Danish woman laughing next to me told me that they always do this at weddings.

But, a nearly eight-month pregnant bride dressed in scarlet is apparently not the typical Danish way of doing things. Nor is making a toast with everyone standing on their chairs and their left foot up on the table. And nor is serving cheese to 165 people instead of wedding cake for dessert.

Everything was perfection, though, down to the last detail.

The food was a marvel, mouth-watering fish with mousseline sauce and pickled green tomatoes, glazed veal with little vegetables and broad-leaf parsley purée, all served to 165 people at once and at the perfect temperature by Babette, who is a man, and who did the food styling for the movie Babette's Feast.

Then we danced to some band that we had never heard of but is apparently No. 2 or something in Denmark (the women, aged 15 to 75, were swooning), and then a dj, until our suits were nearly soaked through with sweat and A. the TV producer was in severe pain from her high heels, dancing until nearly 3 a.m., before taking our leave from the bride (who was reclining on a victorian sofa brought in expressly for her to recline on), and getting on a boat that brought us back to our hotel just down the street from the Amalienborg Palace.

It was only a weekend, and an hour's airplane ride away, but it felt like another world.

The Swedish word for the day, which has been the word a number of times, I have no doubt, is bröllop, which means of course wedding.

- by Francis S.

On our way to the release party for the gay cookbook (When I tried to explain to C. how food can be gay, I had to admit it's not the food but the photos of men frolicking about nearly naked that make the cookbook gay), we saw a woman walking a pig about the size of a pug, bold as could be, down Storgatan, across from Annakhan.

"Yeah, it's a miniature pig now," said E., the bouncer. "But feed that pig enough and it will be huge."

She is so very right. Miniature pig is another word for piglet.

The Swedish word for the day is gris, which means pig, and should not be confused with pigg, which means alert or bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

- by Francis S.

On the way to work, I passed a bicycle with a purple sparkly banana seat and monkey handlebars. With the rush of Proust's madeleine dipped in lime twig tea, I was brought back to 1971, when girls wore knit ponchos and boys had bangs and everyone drove a bicycle with monkey handlebars and sparkly banana seats. Mine was blue, bought by my parents at Sears, and I was ashamed of it because it was far too elaborate, with glittery hand grips with plastic streamers and a sissy bar on the back. But I rode it to school anyway.

Can it be possible that banana seats back?

The Swedish verb for the day is att cykla. It means to ride a bicycle.

- by Francis S.

I woke up this morning and, opening the venetian blinds in the study, I was horrified to see that the trees on the hills of Observatorielunden across the street were well on their way to turning gold.

It is only early September. At least it says it is early September on my calendar.

Is it possible for the leaves to change this early?

The Swedish word for the day is färg. It means color.

- by Francis S.