Time to choose this years winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Since we won last year the competition is held in Sweden – Malmö Arena to be exact. Petra Mede and Malin Åkerman have been a great host-couple – very professional! And I heard Sarah will be part of the finale too tonight. Yeah! Love her Lynda-character.
Big demonstrations in Malmö due to Israel participating. The ones earlier this week were manageable without major incidents. Fingers crossed nothing bad will happen tonight either.
The countries qualified after the two semi finals are;
Sweden is first out with Martin & Martinus – Unforgettable.
Winner: Switzerland with “The Code” performed by Nemo
Second place: Croatia
Third place: UkraineSweden 9th place!
And K won the challenge price! Yeah! Congratulations and thank you for a great evening!
Day off
Since yesterday was the Ascension Day yesterday we took today off to get another long weekend. Lovely. Our youngest had to work so hubby game him a ride to work on his way to his workout. Win-win!
Today the sun is shining and it’s really nice weather outside. Perfect.
Tonight we play the first game in the Ice Hockey World Championship – this year played in Prague. Our first opponent is USA. Group A also consist of France, Germany, Latvia, Slovakia, Kazakstan and Poland. In group B Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Great Britain and Canada play.
PS! We won 5-2! Amazing start! Fingers crossed it’s a sign we have a great team this year! Love that Erik Karlsson is captain and part of Tre Kronor again after 12 years absence. Yeah!
ESC – part 2
Tonight it is the second part of the Eurovision Song Contest.
I especially look forward to the performances while waiting for the result. Lol. They were quite good in the first semi-final with Johnny Logan, Benjamin Ingrosso and others performing. Since Sweden already has a place in the finale the voting result it isn’t as thrilling to watch. Tonight they had a sing-along with former winner songs – Sertab, Helena Paparazzo and Charlotte Perelli. And then a great interval act performed by Petra, Malin and Sarah among others.
These pre-qualified countries will perform (but not compete) and vote in Semi-final 2 – France (after song 5), Spain (after song 9) and Italy (after song 13).
The final 10 countries going thru to the finale was; Latvia, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Israel, Greece, Estonia, Switzerland, Georgia and Armenia.
Short day
A rainy day and not very warm either. What happened to the summer feeling we’ve enjoyed lately? Gone.
Had to get in early today due to a training session at work. Then I stayed an hour after work for another reason so my short day almost turned into a full day. Oh well.
Now I’m off until Monday which is nice! A lot of fun things going on the next couple of days with the Eurovision semis and finale, the world championships in ice hockey starting on Friday and soccer of course. Long weekend – here we come!
ESC – part 1
The “big five” along with the winning country from last year is also performing – United Kingdom (after song 4), Germany (after song 8) and Sweden (after song 11). They are not in the semi-final competition – just showing their songs.
The final 10 countries going thru to the finale was; Serbia, Portugal, Slovenia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Finland, Cyprus, Croatia, Ireland and Luxembourg.
Back home
Our last day on our roadtrip – time to pack up and start the long drive back to Sweden. We left Oslo after breakfast and decided to take different route back. So, instead of driving via Årjäng we drove north and passed Torsby instead. Entering into Sweden we stopped to take a photo of this very old stone marking the border between our countries.
We arrived in time for dinner – we picked up some thai food and could enjoy dinner with the boys for the first time in a week. Lovely. Missed them so much but I am so glad that they are ok with us being away. Now I’ve ran some laundry and downloaded the 700 photos I have taken. Lol. Now my hubby has to download his photos too and then we can start sorting them out. Puh. A great roadtrip has come to an end.
Castles of the month – Bergen and Oslo, Norway
On our roadtrip to Norway we visited two castles. First out “Gamlehaugen” the King’s official residence in Bergen situated close to Troldhaugen where the Norwegian composer Edward Grieg lived and worked. The castle was build in 1899 and opens the ground floor to the public during the summer.
The second castle we visited was “Det Kongelige Slottet” in Oslo. It is situated at the end of Karl Johans Street on a hill overlooking Oslo. Building activities commenced in 1824, and the foundation stone was laid by King Carl Johan on 1 October 1825. The Palace was officially taken into use on 26 July 1849 by King Oscar I. At this time the Swedish king ruled both over Sweden and Norway.
The Royal Palace is the home of the Norwegian King and Queen and also a workplace for the whole royal family. It is open to the public during the summer. Behind the castle is a beautiful park filled with statues and monuments.
Oslo
We woke up this morning looking out of the window in our roof overlooking the mountain with waterfalls. Amazing. What a start of the day.
After breakfast we stopped for gas before we started the journey to the famous viewpoint Stegastein with the Aurlandfjord below. The road was very narrow but we made it to the top and the trip was worth it! Wow!
Driving towards Oslo we passed thru snow covered landscapes, lakes with light blue glacier ice, beautiful valleys, fjords. Since we started the day a bit later than planned (they didn’t start serving breakfast until 8 AM) we skipped one of our stops and drove to the Utöya memorial site directly. Very interesting to see and a beautiful place.
Finally we arrived at Oslo – our last destination before heading home tomorrow. Radisson Blu hotel seldom disappoints – but first they gave us a room that didn’t fit the description of our reservation so we complained and received another room which is really a great room. On the 15th floor with a view over the castle and Karl Johan street. Amazing.
Gudvangen
We checked out after breakfast and drove to see the Gamlehaugen castle where the Norwegian royal family lives when they are in Bergen. After that we went to see the Edward Grieg residence.
A lovely day driving by the Hardangerfjorden stopping to see a lot of spectacular views, waterfalls and mountains. Another amazing sunny warm day – can’t believe how lucky we have been with the weather. We drove all the way over to Vøringfossen which was amazing but a bit too high up for me… couldn’t take any good photos there unfortunately. But truly breathtaking!
Arrived at our destination around 4.30PM – at Gudvangen Fjordtell. A viking-hotel right by the Nærøyfjorden. Now we’ve relaxed for a bit after another long day in the car before it’s time to have dinner.
Bergen
The breakfast in Stavanger was not as good as the one in Drammen but still very nice. We checked out around 8.30 and started our drive towards waterfalls, ferry-trips, mountains and fjords. And we had a wonderful day with sunny weather and around 23C.
We arrived in Bergen around 7 PM and after we had found a parking garage and checked in to the hotel (which was much less standard than the four stars it had been given) we took the mountain railway up to the top to enjoy a spectacular view over the city. We had dinner up there at the Floyen restaurant which was lovely. After dinner we took the railway back down again and strolled around the dock for a bit – and looked at the traditional Bergen houses on the photo.