Go Suomi Go!

Hip hey, hooray!! Thank you Finland for a spectacular show!! Yesterday I was proud to be a Finn! No need for a national shame even if we didn't get that many points - at least for me, it was the show itself that mattered, and it was superb! (and as we all know, the voting results in Eurovision Song Contest are more often than not a representative of current geopolitical relations, and yesterday was basically an Eastern Europian feast). Ei tarvinnut tuntea myötähäpeää, homma hoidettiin hienosti kotiin.

It was a bit shame that I am abroad for the one (but hopefully not only) time the Eurovision Song Contest took place in my lovely home town. It would've been fantastic to take part in the Helsinki hullabaloo and to watch the contest on the stairs of Senate Square like thousands of others did. But luckily there are Eurovision freaks in Glasgow as well: yesterday evening us Finns, two Dutch, one Norwegian and one Australian all gathered in Anna-Riitta's place to watch the contest and fill our bellies with authentic Finnish food that Anna-Riitta had made (good God, she had put so much effort on it, thanks again A-R!). And I guess we had as much fun as the people did on Senate Square, topped with the excitement of watching the contest abroad and seeing how Finland is portrayed! ;)

Huomio: Suomalaisille englantiin kyllästyneille tai sitä huonommin ymmärtäville lukijoilleni vinkkinä, että Anna-Riitan blogista löytyy myös kertomusta viisuvalvojaisistamme, silkalla suomenkielellä ;)

Let the pictures speak for a while:


Iskemättömänä. Anna-Riitta had put so much effort of feeding us.


A variety of Finnish candies were waiting for us on the table!


Hard Rock Hallelujah! A gluten-free and lactose-free cake, all for me! :D


Let the munching begin! Me, Jolien (left) and Margje (right) filling our plates.


More guests: Lotta, Petra behind her, Gayathri, Anna-Kaisa and Paula (A-R's Finnish guest from Leicester).


And so the intense watching starts. Jolien, me, Petra, G and Eva.




Laughing at something, probably the counting of the votes.

The show was well done all in all. I was especially impressed by the stage floor and background being a huge screen. The lights were also as cool as you can imagine with such a budget. Lauri actually told me that there was so much stuff on the ceiling of Hartwall Areena that if it had snowed just a bit, they would've had to wipe the snow off immediately to prevent the roof from collapsing! :D

The picture the little inserts conveyed of Finland was what I wished for: not just tacky touristic commercials with landscapes and stuff, but humorous presentation of all kinds of Finnish oddities such as swamp soccer, indoor skiing, winter swimming in a hole in the ice (what's 'avantouinti' in English?) etc... The funny thing was that we couldn't really deny anything: 'Yes, some people do that... of God, yes, we do that too...'. One thing was a bit unauthentic though: why on earth did they wear towels in the sauna?? Shame on you, shame on you! :D




Feel the excitement!

There was only one thing spoiling the fun: the British commentator, Mr. Terry Wogan. Yes, they say he's sarcastic, and I love British sarcasm over all, but even sarcasm loses its effect if it's overdone! He was being sarcastic about EVERYTHING: the singers, the songs, the video clips between the songs, the presenters... Sometimes he got it to the point - I agree with him that Krisse's humour didn't really amuse the majority of Europeans ('cos you have to get to know her style, which, after getting to know it, I still don't find particularly funny). But he dared to spoil Antti Jokinen's opening video of Lordi and Lapland by pointless blathering about reindeers. Childish bastard! Like a little kid demanding for attention! The final straw for me was when he kept on wondering about the boy in the bubble during Apocalyptica's and the acrobats' performance. I would have loved to let the performance take my breath away, which might have happened without Mr. Wogan's annoying comments. Of course he's allowed to make comments, sarcastic or not, but please, not during the performances! That's called underrating the spectators' ability to make their own judgements! So shut up Terry Wogan! Thank you! :D

Anyway. Serbia won, good for them, I really liked the song even though it apparently didn't set the place on fire (like Lordi did a year ago, haha!). Ukraine's 2Unlimited copy was hysterically funny and would've deserved the victory likewise, but I think it was good for Eurovision's image that a more serious song won this time. Oh, and yes, I gave my vote to Finland's Hanna, of course I had to take the opportunity to vote for my own country! ;) It didn't count much though, but hey, we didn't come last, it was Ireland and the UK, hahahah! There's something to mull over, Terry Wogan.


Afterwards the more sensible people went to sleep, and the less sensible people (me, Maija, Eva and G) continued to the QMU to practise our face muscles...



...and our reflexes with a hilarious hippo game where the goal was simply to eat balls:



I also turned out to be the worst pool player in the universe. Which I'm proud of!

So, a good day all in all!