{"id":3326,"date":"2018-06-05T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T14:50:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T18:50:08","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-denmark\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Denmark … Featuring Michelle Ofelia @ #ofeliasbookshelf"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span> It’s time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from Costa Rica … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span>
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<\/span> Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span>
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My name is Michelle Ofelia and I was born and raised in Odense, Denmark. I\u2019m a Danish major at the University of Southern Denmark. I read a lot of books, and I love writing as well. I\u2019m a book blogger and a bookstagrammer and I just love to work with words. I lived two years in Spain when I was a kid, and I really miss that, so I have a dream about moving back there someday. I live in a lovely apartment with my hamster Jojo. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nBlog<\/a>\/\/Instagram<\/a>\/\/Goodreads<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n


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<\/b><\/span> What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/b><\/span>
\nA unique thing about Denmark, and especially about my town (Odense), is Hans Christian Andersen, the famous author. I grew up 10 minutes away from where he was born, so I find this really unique. Here in December, we do have a huge Christmas celebration, which is so amazing. <\/span>
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\nAlso, here in Denmark, we celebrate Christmas on December 24th. We spend the whole day together with our family. We eat our traditional dish, then we dance around the Christmas tree before we open over gifts. After all of that, we have dessert, and you can actually win an extra gift if you find the almond in the <\/span>risalamande. When we are done with all that, we relax with a drink and enjoy the rest of this wonderful day.   <\/span>
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\nTell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/b>
\nThis is a tough question. There are so many places in Denmark I love. We have a lot of nature, our cities are small and old. In Odense, which is my city, we still live and use the houses from the seventeen century or older. We only have about 5,5 million citizens in Denmark, so everything is small here. Some of my favorite things and places are our small forests, our many creeks and no matter where you are in Denmark, you\u2019re always close to the beach. One thing I wish we did, was washing and cleaning our streets a bit more. Compared to other countries, our streets are just dirty. <\/span>
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\nTell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/b>
\nMy all-time favorite dish is actually the Danish traditional Christmas dish. It\u2019s roast pork with brown potatoes (small potatoes caramelized in sugar), Red cabbage and brown sauce. And then we have \u2018\u2019sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d\u2019\u2019 as the only country in the world, which is also very delicious. <\/span>
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\nTell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/b>
\nWe actually use a lot of English words when we speak! We\u2019ve adopted quite a few words from English, which is now in our dictionary, and I actually find that a bit funny. We have different dialects as most countries, but if you go to southern Jutland they have their own dictionary, no one in Denmark understands what they are saying, which is extremely hilarious. We are such a small country with only 5.5 million citizens and we have about 6 different dialects. I don\u2019t really know anything about slangs since I don\u2019t use it myself. <\/span><\/p>\n

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