Eurovision 2009: What The Hell Was That?!

So our English neighbors ('scuse me: neighbours) invited us to their apartment this past weekend to see the Eurovision Finals. I figured they were referring to the Eurosport channel (similar to ESPN), and the neverending soccer matches, so the plan was to go up there with some beer and a bemused attitute. Before we went up, I did manage to figure out that this is some sort of singing/talent contest-- think European Idol, only much, much bigger. I had no idea.

Eurovision is a frenetically paced televised song contest that dates back to the mid-1950's, and is one of the most-watched broadcasts of the year. The participating countries that can submit artists must be members of something called the European Broadcasting Union which is a bit of a misnomer as it includes countries in Northern Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. As of this year, a whopping 51 countries have participated at least once, but for the actual broadcast the number of entries was capped at 25 for the sake of brevity (apparently, there are all sorts of semi-finals and eliminations leading up to the Big Broadcast). At any rate we were treated to 25 completely unmemorable songs in all styles, and a great many of them were so middle of the road, I thought I was at a Hootie & The Blowfish covers night or something. Our group (3 Brits, 3 Americans, 1 German) figured that because the songs were all so vanilla the presentation was the key, so for no good reason we were all rooting for the entries that had a touch of showmanship: Greece (an oilier Ricky Martin), Turkey (funky belly dancing), Germany (home team, and fairly burlesque), and the Ukraine, which was so absolutely over the top we were all cracking up over it. Naturally, none of these guys won-- the Norweigans did by a massive margin, with a song that none of us could remember 5 minutes after we saw it. Eurovision voting is heavily political and the votes are cast by phone-- but in an attempt to be fair, you can't vote for your home country. Anyway, it was a fun night. The Ukrainian video is above, and teeters on the NSFW, as it positively drips with sexuality-- crotch shots, engine graphics in the background, the shirtless Roman Guard flipping the bird... maybe it requires 3 beers to be as amusing as we thought at the time, but have at it.

Storm Of The Century (May 2009 ed.)!!!

We live in a basement apartment... well, sort of-- standing up in the apartment, "ground level" is roughly at belly-button level. Ergo, a small flight of stairs leading down to the door. It's been raining REALLY HARD the last couple days, and well... the pictures speak for themselves at this point. The water seeped under the door, into the mud room, and was heading into the living room on a collision course with the carpets and electronics. I went out the side window with two buckets and bailed water for about 25 minutes. For more Storm Of The Century!!! photos, click HERE, or follow the links on the right hand margin of the screen.

Salzburg Pictures Are Up!

Sorry everybody for the slow posting here. The Salzburg, Austria pictures are now up on the photo site, so you can click on the link on the right hand margin, or HERE to see them, as well as the old Budapest photos for any of you laggards out there. As with the previous set, once in the photo site, you can select "slide show" to see the photos on a roll, or click and and advance each photo seperately, which allows you to read my marginally coherent commentary and comment on the pics yourself. My overall impressions:

- It's a beautiful city on a river ringed by the Austrian Alps-- in other words, everbody's dream version of an old European city, except this one is real. To steal a line from Douglas Adams, it's the kind of scenery that makes you want to break out in spontaneous applause. As nice as these photos turned out, the real thing is even more pretty.

- Despite it being touristy, I really liked Salzburg (and B was absolutely bananas ga-ga over it-- this must be how I look at an auto show). It's a really charming small city with things to see, places to go, and things to do. It was Mozart's birthplace and primary residence for many years (this is referenced everywhere you look, to almost comic levels), and it's a music lovers' paradise-- there's a free concert being put on almost every day of the year, usually by world class musicians.

- If you're not there for the fact that it's Mozart's birthplace (and if you didn't know it beforehand, you sure as shootin' will know within about 10 minutes after arriving in town), then English speakers are obviously there for The Sound of Music, which was largely filmed in Salzburg and the immediate area.

- Interesting thing about The Sound of Music: Most Austrians have not seen it. It was only about 9 years ago that this film was dubbed into German. The Von Trapp family story is known in Germany and Austria-- but through a different movie, the beloved German film Die Trapp Familie. The Sound of Music, an English-language musical with a (mostly) British and American cast, was immediately discounted as a pale imitation, and with the time lag between its initial release (1965) and its eventual dubbing into German (2000) is also very late to the party. Rest assured though that everybody in Salzburg has seen it-- 44 years after its release, the film still draws literally hundreds of thousands of fans a year to the city. This may break a few hearts but the movie took MANY Hollywood liberties, far too numerous to explain here-- another reason the Austrians don't care much for it. And the song "Edelweiss" is not an old Austrian folk song; it's something Rodgers & Hammerstein cooked up for the play and movie.

- Prepare yourselves for a bit of sticker shock. The Euro exchange rate is as bad as ever to the US Dollar, but some of the prices from the downtown stores bordered on price gouging: €7.40 for a 4-pack of AA batteries, and €2.70 for a small bottled water work out to $9.90 and $3.60 for all my American friends. Like I said, it's touristy. But reading up and being smart goes a long ways. It's a college town, and the locals sure aren't going to pay top dollar for their apple streudel (the local delicacy; the secret is in the sauce BTW)-- figure out where the students and local residents eat and shop, and you'll find better food and realistic prices.

Barring a quick 3-day jaunt to a close-by German city in the interim, our next scheduled trip will be to Dublin, Ireland in June-- but that's a month away. In the meantime, click on the links and enjoy the photos!

Why Guys Like Me Rarely Stay In Places Like This

Despite my initial ambivalence, Salzburg, Austria was a surprising joy and I'd recommend it to anybody-- you see, other than 5 minute bits here and there over the years, I've never seen "The Sound of Music," so I had no real reason to visit this city, but I came away a fan of the place. So while the pics are in the process of being put up, I'll give you this story of our stay:

We stayed at the 5-Star Sheraton Salzburg, mainly because we got a great deal on the room. I've traveled a bit and stayed in my share of nice hotel rooms, but on the whole, the majority of hotels/motels I've stayed in are on the "budget" end of the spectrum (best worst place: some motel in the jerkwater town of Mount Vernon Missouri, located between I-44 and a cow pasture-- the place was so sketch I felt the need to barricade my door with my luggage). Anyhoo, I'm taking a shower in the Sheraton, but the light switches don't seem to activate the fan. I notice a cord hanging in the shower. It's the same material and thickness as some of those hotel clothesline deals, but it's hanging free, so I give it a tug to retract it-- nothing. I try again-- nothing. Hmmm, maybe it's for the bathroom fan, so I yank on it a few times. Nothing. What the deuce, man? It was at this point I noticed the sticker at the base of the cord: It was an emergency cord to alert the front desk that, ahem, I've fallen and I can't get up. And I must've pulled on that sucka 5-8 times by this point. A quick shout to B in the other room to alert the front desk that I didn't keel over or fracture my skull slipping on a loofah, and there we go-- nice touch, but you shouldn't let card-carrying Super-8/Howard Johnson Express Inn frequent guests like me near things like that. For the record, the fan never did work.

More on Salzburg later this week!