Monthly Archives: May 2013

Well here we go, the 1st Semi is coming up, I thought I’d do a sort of live feed below even though you’re all not going to see it till Friday (SF1 – Friday 7:30pm on SBS1), plus I won’t be able to do this for the 2nd Semi or GF (but I’ll be sure to post about these shows as soon as I get home, so be sure to check back here on Friday and Sunday your time)

9:05 pm – Just watching SF1 on TV now, the intro is a very interesting take on the winning song from last year. Can’t wait to see the 2nd Semi on Thursday and GF on Saturday!!!

9:08pm – Funny hosts and English translations as usual. Typical Eurovision 🙂

9:10pm – It appears we might be able to vote in this Semi, this could be exciting!! More later on when the voting starts

9:11pm – 1st song up, it’s Austria with Shine

9:14pm – A good solid start to the ESC. Probably not a winner but should score well, next up is Estonia with Et Uus Saaks Alguse

9:15pm – B&W, nice effect, first time I’ve seen it used in Eurovision. Another solid song, probably not a winner but should score well.

9:16pm – The wind machine’s back, hopefully it’s Julia’s friend Melanie 🙂 and smoke Yah!!

9:18pm – Thank you Estonia, next up is Slovenia with Straight into Love

9:19pm – Freya doesn’t like this one, but the first dance-style song this year so we’ll see how the audience reacts…

9:22pm – The audience liked it, but I’m not too fussed. Next up is Croatia with Mižerja

9:24pm – Good harmonies, but not one of my favourites. Good job Croatia.

9:27pm – It’s now Denmark’s turn with Only Teardrops. Currently the Danish commentator is talking, but I don’t understand a thing as it’s all Danish to me

9:28pm – No shoes for our singer, Freya thinks she sounds like Shakira. Another solid song, possible a winner. Did you know Denmark has only had 2 victories in the past 42 times they’ve entered.

9:29pm – What?? Glitter already, but this is only a semi-final. Them Danes and Swedes must be quite chummy.

9:30pm – The Danish commentator sounds very pleased with her performance, and the host is back. Shock Horror, she’s wearing the same dress, budget cuts must be hitting hard, only one host this year and no costume change yet???

9:31pm – Funny interlude, and now here comes Russia with What If

9:33pm – And there’s giant light globes on the stage. Doesn’t sound like a winner to me, but still a good performance by Dina.

9:35pm – And now there’s portable giant light balls… Solid finish. Good job Russia

9:36pm – Now onto Ukraine with Gravity. I like this song, so I’m hoping she gets through to the Grand Final.

9:37pm – ???? I don’t understand that. What’s with the guy carrying her on??

9:38pm – Butterfly ring noted – Cue the lightning and smoke machines. Freya’s just said she thought this was a Disney song I’ve been listening to for the past several weeks. Come on!!

9:39pm – Apparently this sounds like Defying Gravity from Wicked according to Freya. And now she’s relating the song to the Lion King.

9:40pm – Well done Ukraine, my vote for you is secured. Now we’re onto The Netherlands with Birds.

9:41pm – I applaud The Netherlands for still participating, even though they haven’t won since 1975 which just happens to be the year our singer was born. Somehow don’t think this year will be any different. The song’s quirky but not winning material. A solid performance though.

9:45pm – Now it’s Montenegro with Igranka. Was that a duo of astronauts and some slow mo I saw. Perhaps something is lost in translation with this song.

9:46pm – Hmmmm, its weird, but after last year’s performance from Montenegro….

9:48pm – Next up it’s Lithuania with Something (yes that’s the title of the song)

9:49pm – It’s Angel from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and he’s got something to tell us…

9:51pm – A solid performance from Lithuania, probably not a winner, cause he’s falling apart and he’s leaving today, so won’t be here for the Grand Final anyway 🙂 (Probably for the best, as which sane person names their shoes 🙂  )

9:52pm – Now it’s Belarus with Solayoh – I’ve been liking this song in the lead up so we’ll see…

9:53pm – It’s a giant disco ball!!

9:54pm – A good song, but not a winner. Freya reckons she doesn’t normally wear heels very much as she appears to be struggling to move. Reminds me of some of Greece’s past performances…

9:55pm – Cue the disco ball drums, fire and a key-change. Let’s drink to that…

9:56pm – WOW, multi directional fire!!! That’s cool. A good (Freya says dubious but she’ll vote for her anyway) performance and in with a chance for the Grand Final.

9:57pm – Not it’s Moldova with O Mie, another personal fave

9:58pm – Interesting, she’s not singing in English like in the Youtube promo video. Freya says she looks like a Toilet paper doll cover, you know the one that covers the toiler paper rolls.

9:59pm – She’s flying and now her dress is on fire. Good job Moldova, votes from me coming your way.

10:00pm – Grandma we’re now onto your favourite country, Ireland with Only Love Survives.

10:01pm – I think I just spotted a Bodhrán drum (Celtic Thunder anyone??).

10:02pm – Well so far it’s better than Jedward from the last two years.

10:04pm – Not a fave of mine, but I’ll put in a vote for you Grandma. Next up Cyprus with An Me Thimasai but first a small interlude with with our host, look out for our (Australia’s) Hijack – YAHHHH

10:07pm – Go Australia!!, now back to the formalities with Cyprus with An Me Thimasai.

10:09pm – Another solid performance, but I don’t think it will win. Good job Cyprus.

10:11pm – Now it’s Belgium’s turn with Love Kills

10:12pm – Hmmm, another good performance, but not one of my faves. Freya thinks he looks like an older version of Justin Biber or Amanda Bynes from She’s The Man.

10:15pm – Now it’s the last song of the semi – Serbia with Ljubav Je Svuda.

10:16pm – Katy Perry look alikes. Interesting costume designs. I suggest reading the English lyrics to this song to make better sense of the onstage performance.

10:19pm – Another good performance, but not one of my faves. Let’s get ready for the recap…

10:20pm – Now time to vote, let’s see if it works….

10:26pm – Alas no luck with voting yet, but the host has ridden a Segway to the Green Room, which I believe is just behind the main stage. And apparently it’s were everything happens, except the bulk of the show. Also appears budget cuts have affected this section of the show as well, as usually there is another host for the Green Room. Oh dear, more humour lost in translation. Anyway lets talk to some countries….

10:28pm – Cue the video, the host is tired….

10:30pm – Some very corny host insertions throughout the video 🙂

10:31pm – It’s about time for another recap… Still no luck with voting

10:35pm – Voting over, not sure if any of my attempts worked. Now it’s time for the interval act….

10:37pm – Our Danish commentator has just solidly talked through the entire first 5 minutes of the interval act. Granted there wasn’t any singing, but still, just SHUT UP!!

10:41pm – Very good audience participation here, and release the pingpong balls.

10:42pm – Argh the commentator is back… Ah Ha a costume change for our host ready for the results.

10:43pm – Where did they find this crazy lady???

10:4pm – Ok, lets get back to the results, but first a quick view of the entries from the Big Five and Sweden.

10:45pm – The French entry looks like Julia Zemiro

10:46pm – Again the UK entry says, “yes we’re here but really don’t want to win, so we’ll just send someone”

10:48pm – Ok, not it’s time for the results, yes?? Alas no, we need to find some famous people in the audience. Can we now find out the results?? Alas no, we need to have a quick chat with the Executive Supervisosr of the ESC. NOW, can we find out the results now?? Yes, finally…

10:49pm – And the results are…  Moldova, Lithuania, Ireland, Estonia, Belarus, Denmark, Russia, Belgium, Ukraine, The Netherlands. And there we have it the first semi is done and dusted.

10:55pm –  Now for quick recap of the winning countries

10:57pm – So that’s it. I’m excited for Semi Final 2 on Thursday and the GF this Saturday.

Just a small post – For those who’ve been paying attention, you would have noticed by now that I’ve been signing off my blog posts differentlly in each country. In case you hadn’t guessed, I’ve been translating the English words Goodbye/Bye into the native language of the country I’m posting from. 🙂

Adjö

Sweden, home of ᗅᗺᗷᗅ, IKEA, creator of MineCraft and this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

We flew into Stockholm from Tromso, Norway and immedietly found Stockholm was very different to Oslo. The city itself seemed much more alive and had lots of old buildings painted in bright colours. There seems to be people everywhere (might possible be due to the Men’s Hockey thing).

We visited the Swedish Royal Palace and Freya got her first taste of the mass tour groups, which I encountered on my last trip to Europe. Lets just say she wasn’t pleased when I told her the 3 groups we saw today, pales in comparison to what we’ll see when we visit Paris and Rome. Apart from this the palace tour was very interesting and reminded me a lot of Versailles in France. The palace itself is also still used today for royal and state affairs and official guest from other countries have stayed in the rooms we were walking through.
After the palace, we visited Stockholm Cathedral which had a lot of bricks used in the interior (see picture below), this was very different to previous churches I’ve been in which have either been marble or whitewashed concrete.

A short stroll away and we were down by the harbour in Sweden’s “Old Town” –

Wandering through these streets reminded me of wandering around Rome, with’s it narrow alleyways and large squares with restaurants around the edge.

Freya and I both agree that Stockholm is a really nice city with lots of green spaces and parks, and we could see ourselves living here. I can certainly see why Stockholm is referred to as the “Venice of the North”.

There is an island about 10mins from Central Stockholm called Djurgården, which is home to forests, grassy fields, walking and cycling tracks, museums and Grona Land (an amusement park).
We visited this island to see the Nordic and Vasa Museums, as well as the newly opened ᗅᗺᗷᗅ museum. A short trip to Grona Land which is celebrating it’s 130th anniversary and has the worlds highest starflyer (it’s a ride with chairs hanging off it that spin around in the air), offered a really good view of Stockholm.
The Nordik Museum was originally built to house all sorts of Nordic items, but now just holds Swedish related exhibitions. It was interesting to see how Swedish culture has progressed through the centuries.
The Vasa Museum, is solely dedicated to the enormous Vasa ship, which was built in the 17th Century. The ship sank only 2kms into it’s maiden voyage and sat on the bottom of Stockholm harbour for over 300 yrs before being salvaged and restored. It’s very impressive to see up close and 98% of what you see is the original ship. I’ve included a picture below but it doesn’t really convey how large this ship actually is. For those who are interested, the ship sank due to poor design making it too top heavy, a gust of wind in the sails caused the ship to tilt to one side, letting water flow in through the lower cannon holes, thus sinking the ship.

No visit to Stockholm would be complete without a visit to the newly opened ᗅᗺᗷᗅ Museum where one can view an assortment of the band’s costume and memorabilia, as well as a number of interactive displays. The museum takes you through from the bands formation to cessation and the audio guide has lots of interesting facts about the band provided by members of the band. I’m still hoping they might do a small performance at the Grand Final on Saturday but we will have to wait and see.

As already mentioned in my previous post, our hotel room was extremely small, but our hotel was centrally located, the room had a decent shower and the Internet was ok, but the lighting needed improvenment as I was showering in semi-darkness. I wouldn’t recommended it unless you were a bit desperate (as we were).

As I’m writing this now, we’re on the train from Stockholm to Copenhagen, and Freya’s managed to eat half the complimentary mint chocolates provided in 1st class (she was feeling a bit sick as the train is travelling quite fast and is a little bit bumpy and she thought the mint would help). The Swedish countryside is really beautiful with lots of lakes, forests and rolling hills.

Can’t wait till Eurovision, so I’ll leave you with this 360 I took from on top of the  TV broadcast tower just outside Central Stockholm (it’s not a perfect 360 as the top of the tower was quite large, but it doesn’t look too bad) –

Adjö

Finally in Sweden, just checked into our hotel in Stockholm, which is about the size of a broom cupboard. There is literally no room to swing a cat. I’ve taken a picture which is below –

Our hotel room in Stockholm

It is exactly as described on the website but was the only place we could find as the Men’s International Ice Hockey Finals are also on here in Stockholm at the same time.

Less than a week till Eurovision, can’t wait.

Adjö

P.S. For those who don’t get the title of this post, click HERE

Just thought I’d post a couple of very useful travel apps I’ve found during my travels so far –

XE Currency – Very useful for converting between currencies to get an idea of prices etc. It also caches the last exchange rates you downloaded on WiFi, so you can use them when you’re not connected to any WiFi.

Google Translate – Very useful for translating from Norwegian or any other language to English. It also holds a record of past translations you’ve done so you can refer back to it when you’re offline.

Trip Advisor City Guide – Very useful for reading up on the next city you’re visiting whilst on the plane. All you need to do is download the city whilst connected to WiFi and then you’re set. It has photos, maps, attractions, restaurants, hotels and other things as well as reviews from the Trip Advisor website, all cached for offline viewing. You can also save/bookmark some attractions in your chosen city so you can easily refer back to them later when you’re online. You can write a trip journal in it, as well as writing reviews on the places you’ve stayed for later uploading.

As well as the above there is the usual Google Maps, the inbuilt Weather app and the all important Temple Run 2 for when you’re board on the palne. My best distance so far is 13.5km.

Ciao