Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

Tonight was the night: EuroVision. It was as cheesy and ridiculous as everyone warned me. The best way to describe it is the cheese of a Miss America Pageant combined with an Olympic version of Idol. 24 countries from Europe competed in the Finals and all of them perform a song written in their country. It ends up being basically 24 versions of love dance songs in English...often unique English combined with ridiculous dance numbers, wind machines, and costumes. There were some great anomalies though, including this year's winner: Finland! They had a monster rock band dressed in masks and make-up that looked like hideous monsters singing the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah." This masterpiece in song writing included lines like: The walls come down like thunder/ the rocks about to roll/ it's the arockalypse/ now bare your soul. The true believers/ thou shall be saved/ brothers and sisters keep strong in the faith/ on the day of rockoning/ it's who dares, wins/ you will see the jokers soon'll be the new kings. Poetic genius. What word play, what power. Just imagine monsters singing it, and it's so much more meaningful! Better yet, watch them do it here: Hard Rock Hallelujah

Well, Norway didn't do to well. We got 36 points I think. The way it works is that every European country has a call center where people from the country call in to. They cannot vote for their own country, but what happens is that the countries often vote for their neighbors. Sweden gave us a few points and Ireland gave the UK a few votes. Helping out the neighbors you know. Anyways, the top 10 get points and it's fun because they have the votes called in from the capitals around Europe and have a dramatic, pregnant pause as they announce who their great country voted for. Even Malta, at the very end of the night got one 10th place vote for their one and only point.


Well, beneath the complex voting system, dazzling costumes, cheesy music, and bad hosts, there was some entertainment value. I had fun eating shrimp sandwiches for three hours with a few Norwegian friends trying to find it.

(The view walking home at 12.30am. As I finish this blog I'm squinting at the sun coming through my window. Time for the curtains and some sleep.)