It’s 18th May 2013 and you know what this means?! It’s EUROVISION FINAL DAY!

If you don’t know what it is, then I ask you, ‘where the freaking hell have you been in your life?!’ How can you not know?!

Oh well, I guess I should tell you now…better late than never. Since 1956, Eurovision is an annual song competition held among the active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union in which a country submits a song and casts votes on other countries’ songs to decide the most popular one. Sounds simple? It really isn’t. You just need to wait through the songs being performed until after the interval when the real controversy and action happens when you see the voting happening live. Despite each country’s protestations that’s all fair, you can see some underlying political bias. It all happens really everytime a small country wins for e.g. Estonia. You’re guaranteed that the Latvians will vote for Lithuania or perhaps Finland who thus in turns votes for Sweden etc. At every voting stage, you can almost correctly predict the winning country from that vote. So the country who wins the most popular vote will thus in turn hosts the following year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

So this description over and done with, here I am in Madrid after doing a walking tour to discover the sights. And what’s more, I get to celebrate Eurovision here. And what perfect opportunity to introduce my fellow travellers, the Two Bad Tourists to this?! It will be a truly European affair and I couldn’t wait to banter with the Spanish about who was better!

Dolled up, we headed down to the party district of Chueca to find a bar that would be receiving the Eurovision transmission and my god, we found it packed out with so many people all waving the Spanish Flag and a tv station there!

Eurovision Party

We were pretty astounded by the enthusiasm displayed and strangers would greet each other as if they have been friends for years. They didn’t care I was waving a British Flag and wished my entry good luck. Ah, my entry. It’s Bonnie Tyler of ‘Eclipse of the Heart’ fame. A great singer as she is but I didn’t think she would be good enough to win the competition. Check out her video.

It’s a good song but I didn’t think it was poppy or cheesy enough for everyone. If you can guarantee Cheese, Quirkiness, colour, catchy tunes and beautiful people then you’re onto a winning formula. I mean, look why Sweden won the 1974 Eurovision 😉

I think it was more because it reminds everyone how the French was beaten in the Napoleonic Wars 😉

But it’s been a while since the British won the Eurovision Song Contest, 1997 to be precise with Katrina and the Waves ‘Love Shine a Light’ so we do need to get going with winning a few entries. But not bad as Portugal who since they joined has failed to win one for 35 years!

So as Eurovision 2013 opened on-screen, we were reminded of 2012’s winner – Loreen with her track ‘Euphoria.’ It’s very, very annoyingly catchy and thus all 3 of us would be humming it for many days to come…I’m inflicting this on you…

If anyone can interpret her dance moves for me, I’ll love you forever. I mean, what the hell was that? But again, Sweden pulled it out of the bag. Damn those long-legged luscious babes.

Spanish Entry

We didn’t have to wait too long for the Spain entry. If you weren’t watching it in Madrid, you would know as literally the whole city cheered and shook the place! Thunderous as it sounded, flags waving furiously in the air, the sound dropped so low to hear a pin drop. And we listened.

It was nice I thought. But still, I didn’t think it was that good enough to win it. But I kept that to myself, no point in angering people in the bar who’s had a few drinks. So as the UK entry went by, we watched other entries as well. These are my favourite:

The Greek entry was so unbelievable.

But the buoyant mood carried on and people were starting to introduce to each other. The bar put out free sangria and food and the accidental touching of hands over them was a great way to talk to everyone. Even my very poor Spanish could scrape me through! David, Auston and I certainly had a great time and they were probably kept amused by my constant shouting criticisms of the voting system throughout…

In the end, Denmark won out. I thought it would be a Scandinavian country but she did give a good song.

 http://youtu.be/p3f9v8ebuD4

But I didn’t even care. I was glad to be in a European Community. Not only with the Spanish but also Austrians, Germans, Croatians and even Irish! We all had a good time and as I stumbled back home at the godforsaken hour of 5am, we turned to each other…there was absolutely no way we would be going to Toledo for a day out the next day… Europe…you destroyed me.

Party!

What did you think of this year’s Eurovision?

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