SHOW CREATE TABLE test;
CREATE TABLE `test` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `date1` date DEFAULT NULL,
  `date2` date DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=9 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_swedish_ci

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%char%';
character_set_client	utf8
character_set_connection	utf8
character_set_database	utf8
character_set_filesystem	binary
character_set_results	utf8
character_set_server	utf8
character_set_system	utf8
character_sets_dir	C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.5\share\charsets\

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%col%';
collation_connection	utf8_general_ci
collation_database	utf8_swedish_ci
collation_server	utf8_swedish_ci
protocol_version	10
slave_compressed_protocol	OFF